Wall Art Painting: Canvas Acrylic Oil Art Original Guide

So I’ve been painting on canvas for like seven years now and honestly the whole acrylic vs oil thing used to stress me out so much. Let me just dump everything I know because I literally just finished a piece for a client’s living room and I’m still covered in paint.

First thing, canvas prep is gonna make or break your piece and nobody talks about this enough. You can buy pre-primed canvas which is fine, totally fine, but if you’re spending money on good paint you should maybe consider double priming it yourself. I use gesso, the cheap stuff from any art store works, and I do two coats going in different directions. Sounds annoying but it makes such a difference in how the paint sits on the surface.

Choosing Your Paint Type Without Losing Your Mind

Okay so acrylics dry fast which is amazing when you’re impatient like me but also terrible when you’re trying to blend. I was working on this sunset piece last month and the paint was drying before I could even get the gradient right. Here’s what actually works: get a spray bottle with water, mist your palette every few minutes, and work in thin layers. Or you can buy those acrylic retarder mediums but honestly I forget to use mine half the time.

Oil paints though, completely different beast. They stay wet for DAYS which my cat learned the hard way when she walked across a painting I left on the floor…anyway. Oils let you blend forever, the colors are richer, but you need ventilation and the cleanup is a whole thing with mineral spirits or turpentine. I keep my oil painting stuff in the spare room because the smell gives me headaches if I’m working in my main studio.

What I Actually Keep in My Supply Kit

For acrylics, I’ve tested probably twenty brands and here’s the truth: Golden Heavy Body is worth the money for your main colors, but the cheap craft acrylics are totally fine for underpainting or if you’re doing abstract stuff where you’re layering a ton anyway. My go-to palette is titanium white (you’ll go through this SO fast), cadmium red, ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow, burnt umber, and mars black. You can mix literally everything from these.

Brushes are where people waste money. You don’t need fancy ones starting out. I use synthetic brushes for acrylics because they’re cheaper and hold up better with the harsh cleaning. Get a few flats in different sizes, maybe a couple rounds, and one good liner brush for details. The liner brush should be decent quality or it’ll just frustrate you.

Starting Your Actual Painting

This is gonna sound weird but I always start with a toned ground. Staring at pure white canvas makes my brain freeze up. I mix a thin wash of burnt sienna or ultramarine blue, something neutral, and cover the whole canvas. Let it dry completely. Now when you start painting you can see your values better and it’s not so intimidating.

Sketch your composition first with pencil or thin paint. I use a pencil usually because I can erase it, but some people go straight in with paint which is braver than I’ll ever be. For my client work I always do a detailed sketch because I can’t afford to mess up when someone’s paying me, but for personal pieces I’m looser about it.

Layer Building That Actually Makes Sense

Okay so with acrylics you work fast and build up. Thin layers first, thicker layers on top. This is important because if you glob on thick paint right away it can crack as it dries, especially if you’re using cheaper paints. I learned this the hard way on a piece that literally cracked down the middle three months after I “finished” it.

Start with your darkest darks and your composition layout. Block in the big shapes. Don’t worry about details yet, you’re just establishing where things go. I usually do this whole first layer in one sitting because acrylics dry so fast you can keep going. Then I’ll step back, take a photo on my phone because sometimes the camera sees things your eyes miss, and figure out what needs adjusting.

Middle tones come next. This is where your painting starts actually looking like something. You’re refining those big shapes, adding some variation in color, starting to think about light sources. I keep a reference photo on my iPad propped up next to my easel, or if I’m doing something from imagination I’ll have some inspiration images pulled up.

Oil Painting Process Is Different

With oils you gotta think in terms of fat over lean which sounds confusing but basically means each layer should have more oil content than the one under it. Your first layers should be thin, mixed with turpentine or odorless mineral spirits. As you build up you add less solvent and more medium. I use Liquin because it speeds up drying time and I don’t have the patience to wait weeks between layers.

The cool thing about oils is you can work wet into wet and blend for hours. I did this portrait piece where I spent like six hours just on the face, blending skin tones until they were seamless. You can’t really do that with acrylics unless you’re using those new slow-dry ones which I haven’t tried yet.

Color Mixing Without Making Mud

Everyone makes mud when they start, it’s a rite of passage. The trick is understanding color temperature. Your reds can be warm (leaning orange) or cool (leaning purple). Same with blues and yellows. When you mix a warm color with its opposite temperature you get mud. Mix warm with warm or cool with cool and you get vibrant colors.

Also don’t mix more than three colors together generally. Like if you need a specific green, mix blue and yellow, maybe add a tiny bit of red to tone it down, but stop there. More colors equals mud city.

I keep a scrap piece of canvas next to me for testing colors before I commit them to the actual painting. Sounds basic but I still forget sometimes and then I’m trying to scrape off paint that’s already drying because I didn’t test it first and it’s completely wrong.

Dealing With Mistakes

With acrylics you can literally just paint over mistakes once they’re dry, which takes like fifteen minutes. I’ve painted over entire sections of paintings, nobody will ever know. The beauty of opaque paint.

Oils are trickier. If the paint is still wet you can scrape it off with a palette knife or wipe it with a rag and mineral spirits. If it’s dry you have to sand it down or paint over it with opaque colors. I keep baby wipes in my studio for quick cleanups, they work surprisingly well for getting oil paint off your hands too.

Texture Techniques I Use All The Time

Palette knives aren’t just for mixing paint. You can create amazing texture by applying thick paint with a knife. I did this abstract piece for a coffee shop last year where the entire thing was palette knife work, no brushes. It’s bold and the light catches it differently throughout the day which the owner loved.

Dry brushing is another technique where you use very little paint on a dry brush and drag it across the canvas. Great for creating texture like grass or fabric or weathered wood. You want the brush to be almost dry, like you’ve wiped most of the paint off on a paper towel.

oh and another thing, you can add texture medium to acrylics to make them thicker. I use molding paste sometimes when I want really dimensional areas. You apply it with a knife, let it dry completely, then paint over it. Creates this sculptural quality that’s really cool in abstract work.

Finishing And Protecting Your Work

This part is so important and people skip it. Once your acrylic painting is completely dry, like wait at least 24 hours, you need to varnish it. I use a spray varnish because I’m lazy and it goes on more evenly than brush-on for me. Do thin coats, multiple layers, in a well-ventilated area. It protects the paint from UV damage and dust and makes the colors pop.

For oils you have to wait longer, like at least six months before varnishing because they cure slowly from the inside out. In the meantime I use a retouch varnish which is temporary and evens out the sheen. Some areas dry matte and some glossy which looks weird, retouch varnish fixes that.

Actually Original Art vs Copying

So there’s this whole debate about painting from photos versus plein air versus imagination. Honestly, do whatever works for you. I paint from photos constantly because I’m an interior stylist and I need to match specific color schemes and styles for clients. There’s no shame in using references.

But if you’re selling work as original, make sure you’re not just copying someone else’s photo or painting. Transform it, make it yours. I take my own reference photos mostly, or I’ll combine multiple references into one composition. My living room wall is literally covered in reference photos I’ve printed out for current projects.

For abstract work I don’t use references at all, I just put on music and see what happens. Those pieces are hit or miss but when they work they really work. I sold an abstract piece last month that I created while watching some crime documentary, wasn’t even really thinking about it, and it ended up being one of my favorites.

Common Problems I Still Deal With

Cracking happens with acrylics if you paint too thick too fast. Build up gradually, let layers dry between coats. With oils cracking happens if you violate the fat over lean rule, so keep that in mind.

Colors looking different when dry is normal with acrylics. They dry slightly darker usually. You get used to compensating for it. Oils stay pretty true to what you see wet.

Paint drying on your palette is annoying with acrylics. I finally bought a wet palette which is just a container with a sponge and special paper that keeps paints wet for days. Complete game changer, should’ve done it years ago. You can make one yourself with a tupperware container, a sponge, and parchment paper but I got lazy and bought one.

Setting Up Your Space

You don’t need a fancy studio. I painted in my kitchen for three years. You need good lighting though, natural light is best but I also have a daylight LED lamp for night painting sessions. An easel helps but you can prop canvas on a chair if you’re starting out, I did that forever.

Protect your floors because paint goes everywhere. I use a cheap plastic drop cloth that I just shake out outside when it gets too covered. Paper towels, rags, containers for water or solvent, palette (I use a glass cutting board for easy cleanup), and something to hold your brushes while you work.

Ventilation matters especially with oils. I keep a window cracked and run a fan. The fumes can make you feel weird if you’re working for hours in a closed room, trust me on this.

Storage is something nobody warns you about. Finished canvases take up so much space. I stack them facing each other with cardboard between so they don’t stick together. Unused canvases I keep in a closet. Paint tubes I organize in a toolbox by color family because otherwise I’m digging through everything trying to find the one color I need.

Honestly the best advice is just start. Your first paintings will probably be kinda bad, that’s normal. I look at stuff I made five years ago and cringe but that’s how you learn. Every painting teaches you something even if it’s just what not to do next time. Keep the supplies simple at first, get the basic colors and brushes, and experiment. Watch YouTube videos if you get stuck, there’s tutorials for literally every technique imaginable. And take breaks because staring at the same painting for too long makes you unable to see it clearly anymore.