Acrylic Painting Supplies: the complete guide

Heavy body, soft body, fluid, and craft paint

Acrylic paint comes in four consistencies. Heavy body is thick and buttery, holds brushstrokes and palette-knife texture, and is the default for canvas painting. Soft body is creamier and levels out — better for smooth coverage and detail. Fluid acrylics pour and stain like ink. High-flow and ink acrylics behave like watercolor with permanence.

Craft paint — the two-dollar bottles — is a different product entirely: low pigment, high filler, and colors that dry dull and chalky. It has its uses (underpaintings, kids, crafts), but it teaches bad habits about how far paint should go. A single tube of decent student acrylic outperforms a rack of craft bottles.

Student grade versus artist grade

The student/artist gap in acrylic is about pigment concentration. Student lines (Liquitex Basics, Amsterdam Standard, Winsor & Newton Galeria) use less pigment and more binder, so colors are slightly weaker and mixes slightly muddier — but the best student lines are honestly good, and we recommend them without embarrassment for a first year of painting.

Artist-grade acrylic (Golden, Liquitex Professional, Winsor & Newton Professional) is noticeably stronger: colors tint further, dry with less shift, and stay cleaner in mixes. The smart upgrade path is color-by-color — replace white first (you use most of it), then your workhorse primaries.

The eight-tube starter palette

A versatile acrylic palette needs eight tubes: titanium white, cadmium yellow medium (or its hue), yellow ochre, cadmium red medium (or hue), alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, phthalo blue, and burnt umber. From these you can mix skin tones, skies, foliage, and every neutral in between.

Buy the biggest tube of white you can — acrylic painters use two to three times more white than any other color. Mars black is optional; mixing ultramarine and burnt umber makes a richer dark than any tube black.

Brushes for acrylic

Acrylic is hard on brushes: the paint dries fast and permanently, and the medium encourages scrubbing. Synthetic fibers are the right choice — they resist the alkaline binder better than natural hair and cost less to replace. Stiff synthetics (Princeton Catalyst, Royal & Langnickel Zen) handle heavy body; softer synthetics suit soft body and detail.

Four brushes cover a first year: a size 8 flat, a size 8 round, a size 2 round for detail, and a cheap 2-inch flat for gesso and coverage. The unbreakable rule: never let acrylic dry in the brush. Rinse during sessions, wash with soap after, and store flat or handle-down.

Mediums: the two that matter

The acrylic medium aisle is a wall of jars, but beginners need two. Gesso primes raw surfaces — one coat on canvas panels or paper makes paint behave and protects the support. Gloss or matte medium thins paint without weakening the binder, which water alone does past about 30% dilution.

Everything else is a specialty tool: retarder slows drying (useful, but a stay-wet palette does the same job), gel mediums build texture, and pouring mediums serve the pouring niche. Buy mediums when a painting problem demands them, not in anticipation.

Surfaces: panels, canvas, and paper

Canvas panels are the ideal learning surface: rigid, pre-primed, archival enough, and a tenth the price of stretched canvas. Stretched canvas earns its price for finished work — the spring of the fabric under the brush is genuinely pleasant. Acrylic paper (heavy, primed, canvas-textured) is the cheapest practice surface and stores in a drawer.

Acrylic also paints happily on wood panels, illustration board, and properly primed MDF. Whatever the support, it needs primer: raw surfaces suck binder out of the paint and leave colors dull. Our canvas and paper guide covers the full surface landscape.

The stay-wet palette: acrylic's best accessory

Acrylic's fast drying is its great strength and its daily annoyance — paint skins over on a normal palette within minutes. A stay-wet palette (a sponge layer under special paper, in a sealable box) keeps paint workable for days. It is the single accessory that most changes the experience of painting with acrylic.

The commercial versions (Masterson Sta-Wet is the standard) cost about fifteen dollars and last for years. A spray bottle for misting the palette during sessions is the companion purchase.

Budget path: first kit to working studio

A complete first acrylic kit — Liquitex Basics 12-set, four synthetic brushes, a pad of canvas panels, a stay-wet palette, and gesso — runs $80–100. That kit produces real paintings, not just exercises.

The upgrade order that maximizes each dollar: better white paint first, then a proper size-12 flat, then artist-grade primaries, then stretched canvas for finished pieces. Resist the medium wall until a specific painting asks for it. Most professionals use fewer products than beginners own.

Acrylic Painting Supplies compared

The short version, side by side. Every row links to a fuller discussion in the guide above — and every product here earned its place in hands-on testing.

Acrylic paint lines we recommend, compared

Line	Grade	Body	Best for	Typical price (set)
Liquitex Basics	Student	Medium	First kit; best student value	$25–35 (12 colors)
Amsterdam Standard	Student+	Medium	Stronger pigment per dollar	$30–40 (12 colors)
Winsor & Newton Galeria	Student+	Buttery	Smooth coverage and detail	$35–45 (10 tubes)
Golden Heavy Body	Artist	Heavy	Texture and professional work	$45–60 (intro set)
Liquitex Professional Soft Body	Artist	Soft	Smooth, level application	$50–65 (intro set)

Acrylic Painting Supplies FAQs