beginners advice please...

[soap]

Hi everybody,
I usually work with pastel, and must admit have not been around this forum much. But, that's about to change, I hope!

I am looking into working with acrylics. I used to work with some years ago, and loved it.

But, I don't know (or have forgotten ) much about it.
So a few questions, hoping there anybody who can help me out here:

What's the difference between acrylics and gouache?

I used to work with Galleria's acrylics. they came in nice large pots (I am one of throwing loads of paint around ) Which brands would you recommend? Is Galleria really best for 'studies' and not for selling?

Do all surfaces work well? Paper? Canvas? Board?

All advice would be much appreciated!
Thanks,
Soap

[amanda]

As far as I know Goauche is much more similar to watercolour than acrylic. It's like an opaque version of watercolour with a chalky surface which is matt when it dries. Acrylic is totally different, plastic based medium. They use goauche for cartoon cells or at least they used to.

[lornamatic]

Hello,

I haven't worked with acrylic too much, but I'm about to start a class in it. As far as I understand, acrylic actually goes through a chemical change, when it dries it basically turns into plastic, so you can't rewet an area of the paint, you just paint right over it.

That can be a really nice thing - gouache is used like watercolor, but instead of staining the paper like watercolor does, it sits on a thin opaque layer on top. Gouache doesn't change its composition when it dries, and so if you decide you want to paint over an area later, you're going to get puddles of smeared colors.

Gouache paint tends to crack if you lay it on too thick, and it can lose its color rapidly. I've found that over just a few months you can see a difference in the color of some paints. Some people varnish it to try and retain the colors, but I haven't tried that.

Hope this helps,

Lorna

[soap]

thanks for the info, Lorna & Amanda. Very helpful

Anybody on my other questions - ie the quality of Galeria acrylics?

Cheers,
S.

[Dima]

Hello Sophie,

The main difference between acrylics and gouache is that acrylics dry to be waterproof and gouache remain solulable.

The binder of acrylics is a polymer emulsion and that of gouache are different sort of glues of an organic nature such as arabic gum and dextrine (ja, uit de aardappelmeelindustrie).
Gouache is basically an opaque watercolour.

Acrylics dry up darker than when applied and gouache dries up lighter.
W&N claims to have minimized this colourshift with their Finity, Pebeo with their Studio and Lascaux with their gouache.

All well-known manufacturers these days make first rate acrylics, though the names: Liquitex, Lascaux, Golden and Finity may have a special ring to them.

The major difference between the artist- and studentlines are the pigments used.
The studentlines use cheaper though mostly lightfast substitutes for for instance cobalts and cadmiums and may be lees concentrated.
The binders are firstrate or the same and all manufacturers say that you can mix their different products.
They are also often used for murals and that should say something about their quality, I would think.
So Galeria is good quality as is DR system3 or Talens Amsterdam or Pebeo Studio and so on.
So a sensible choice might be guided by things as which thickness do you prefer or which brand is readily available to you or which is cheapest.

And yes you can paint on virtually any surface provided it is not greasy.
But too thin/light papers for instance will buckle certainly if paint is apllied thickly. there is BTW special paper for acrylics.

Hope this helps, Dick

P.S. You might want to have a look at Larry Seiler's thread in the landscape forum where he paints on ceramics.
And his paint is Galeria if I remember well.

[soap]

Thanks a lot, Dick.

[talkingbanana]

Since you're just starting out, you might not want to spring for the artist lines - they're more expensive and it's not worth it when you end up throwing away all your experimental work (been there, done that ).

I use Liquitex's Basics line - they're student grade and affordable for a poor high school student like me. My only complaint with them is that they don't have Payne's Grey, and their magenta and phthalo blues aren't opaque enough for my taste.

As far as I know, Galerias are good, but I haven't tried them out much. In acrylics, there aren't very many bad paints - each line, especially student lines - have some individual colors that aren't up to snuff.

The best thing about acrylics is you can literally paint on just about anything. Watercolor paper works extremely well, especially the super cheap student grade stuff that watercolor doesn't work too well on. Even cardboard boxes work well - you might want to throw a coat of gesso on first, but if you don't that's okay too. If you have any old sketchbooks or pads of paper with the stiff backs that you don't use anymore, you can even paint on those cardboard backs. Wood works well. The stiffer drawing papers work well with acrylics, too.

Hope something I said helps, and have fun with acrylics!

[PthaloBlueGirl]

I use Windsor and Newton's Galleria and Finity lines. Whichever is cheapest at the time I am buying at Michael's Craft store.

I like the Finity the best.

You can get the paints very cheap, at least I think the prices are better, at http://www.dickblick.com

[soap]

Thanks, everyone, so far.
You've all been a great help.

S.

[andyvry]

At the moment, I am using D,R "CRYLA" colours and find them OK.

Painting on Galeria paper quite a lot, but stretch it first.

Btw Talkingbanana, Payne's Grey is just Ultramarine and Black

andy.