Choosing the Best Painting Medium for Beginners (2024)

FAQs

What is the best medium for beginners painting? ›

Acrylic paint is one of the most popular paint mediums, particularly with beginners, as it's easy to use and can be quite affordable. Acrylic paints also don't require special brushes or cleaning tools like oil paints do, making this medium a great place to start if you're new to painting.

Some mediums, such as oil paints, can take a long time to dry and may require multiple layers to achieve the desired effect. If you're working on a tight deadline or don't have a lot of time to devote to your art, a faster-drying medium like acrylic or watercolour paints may be a better choice.

Charcoal

It is best to start with an easier to handle a wide diameter, soft charcoal stick. Depending on how hard you press down on the stick, you can obtain a wide palette of tones, from light gray to intense black.

There are three main painting mediums – oils, acrylics and watercolours – and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Used by all of the great masters, oil painting dates back to the 14th century and has been championed ever since thanks to its rich, glossy appearance and it's longevity and durability.

Two of the most commonly used paints for canvas art are oil and acrylic paint. Acrylic comes in as an all-time favourite with its favourable qualities; it's easy to work with and dries quickly. Oil paint is another winner with its thick, gluey consistency it is the perfect paint recipe paired beautifully with canvas.

PROS: Acrylic is the happy hybrid of the bunch. Like oil, it is well-suited for detail, but it is also easy to use. Artists have classified it as the most “forgiving” of the paints and best for novices. Acrylics are also water-based which means they can be cleaned from brushes more easily.

Watercolor paints are one of the most forgiving in the palette as you let them dry and spray them with water to revive them when ready to get back in!

Some of the most common media are oil paints (paints that use oil to hold pigments together), tempera (pigments held together with egg yolk), marble (soft, white stone), and bronze (a metal used to cast sculptures). Artists often use a particular medium because it affects the texture or color of the work of art.

Impressionist Landscape

This is one of the easy acrylic painting ideas for beginners on canvas. Wondering, “What should I paint as a beginner?” Impressionist landscapes are a good place to start with acrylics because you don't need to worry about fine details looking perfect.

Is watercolor or acrylic easier for beginners? ›

Acrylic paints are more vibrant and opaque than watercolor paints. They're also more versatile, easier for beginners, more durable, have a longer working time, and are more durable.

Watercolor

Speaking of rain painting, watercolor painting for beginners is a great art idea for teens or adults to dip their feet (and brush) into the water. Soft pastel colors spread and create beautiful designs without much effort with this medium.

With watercolor, all is just paint and water. Of course, this is all true. Watercolor painting is low-maintenance. Yet, it's the hardest to master, and many would agree that it's the most challenging medium to paint with.

So if you want to learn about composition, form, color matching, color harmony, and so on, a more forgiving medium such as oils, or acrylics might be your best choice.

Oil paints are one of the most widely used mediums for artists. Its use proliferated from the 15th Century and it continues to be considered the gold standard of painting medium with its own dedicated institute. Made from binding pigments to oils such as linseed oil, the paint is pliable, slow drying and rich.

Ink, glass, watercolor, oil paint, tempera, bronze, and marble are just a few common artistic mediums.