Startup Library: Painting With Acrylic

Description
Everything you need to start painting with acrylic — from tools and brushes to techniques and exercises. Artist Nina Weiss guides you step by step through foundational skills like value, color mixing, and complementary color painting, helping you build confidence with acrylics. By the end, you’ll complete a full still-life project and be ready to create your own works.

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Lessons

01: What You Need: Paint & Palette
Meet Nina Weiss and go over the tools and supplies you’ll need to get started, including what paint and palette to buy. (21 min)

02: What You Need: Brushes
Explore different types of brushes, their functions, and learn how to properly clean and care for them. (14 min)

03: What You Need: Supports
See the various surfaces you can use for acrylic painting, from canvas to boards. Learn how to gesso and prepare supports. (15 min)

04: Method: Stretching Canvas
Follow Nina’s step-by-step demo on constructing your own custom canvases, including corners and finishing. (23 min)

05: Method: Workspace
Organize your workspace and set up lighting to create a comfortable, efficient painting environment. (6 min)

06: Exercise: Value Painting of Geometric Shapes
Practice edge-to-edge painting and explore composition through geometric forms using correct paint consistency and opacity. (39 min)

07: Exercise: Value Painting of Eggs
Learn to paint eggs with depth and realism using directional marks, contrast, and smooth blending transitions. (26 min)

08: Exercise: Monochromatic Painting of Eggs
Introduce color into your practice by creating a monochromatic painting, refining form, light, and edges. (30 min)

09: Exercise: The Color Wheel
Build a color wheel to understand triads, warm/cool tones, and the fundamentals of color mixing. (33 min)

10: Exercise: Neutralization Scales
Experiment with complementary color pairs to expand your palette and master neutralization techniques. (26 min)

11: Exercise: Complementary Color Painting of Eggs
Paint eggs again, this time with complementary violet and yellow, applying color theory to create balance. (32 min)

12: Make It: Lemon Painting
Apply all your new skills in a lemon still life. Work dark-to-light, thin-to-thick, and capture realistic values. (42 min)