Equipment Print E-mail
When first starting out with acrylic, buy just what you need, you can always add as you go along. Always buy a large white and white gesso. Buy the best brushes you can afford, and make them a variety of sizes the most popular brush used in acrylic are bristle brushes. A must is a palette knife or two for mixing and for laying down color onto the canvas. Rags from around the house, 2 jars for water, a plastic plate, and an easel is essential. In purchasing paint I would buy what I could afford, but you will need certain colors to get started and those are: I like raw sienna, burnt sienna, sap green, talens yellow or cadmium yellow, cadmium red, ultramarine blue, carmine, Rembrandt blue, raw umber.
Here are some of the reasons why I chose those colors above. Burnt sienna is a very useful color; it mixes to make a variety of hues. Earth tones, bricks, tiles, wood, copper to name a few. It is effective in producing a gray sky, ultramarine blue and white with a touch of burnt sienna.
Raw sienna is earth tones as well, along with burnt umber. Raw sienna can be used for skin tones, where burnt umber is used for dulling down the surface and making the color it sits next to brighter.
Rembrandt blue is a strong stain and makes a great sky when mixed with ultramarine blue. This color can be used for glazing.
Ultramarine blue is a pigment that is true to its color. It makes a wonderful gray when mixed with burnt sienna.
Cadmium red is a very bright color and is very useful for skin tones. The old masters would make the skin tones out of red, white and green. Today we use a variety of color to make skin tones, some will add to that mix burnt sienna or even raw sienna, it is all a matter of taste and choice.
Sap green is wonderful for foliage; you can make many colors with this from viridian green by adding ultramarine blue and for making a darker green add some umber. There are a variety of ways to make greens, add more yellow to green to pop in the sunlight.
Yellow can be turned into orange by just adding red, and as I said to green to make it pop.
These are just a few of the colors you can invest in, and try.