A Basic Shopping List

I want to try acrylics but a fancy kit costs more than I want to spend and I don’t know what I need. - Virginia

The absolute basic setup would be black paint, white paint, two or three brushes and maybe a small bottle of clear acrylic medium. Add a saucer or paper plate for a palette, a plastic cup to rinse your brushes, mild soap for your brushes and a couple of rags or paper towels. You won’t be painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel but that’s been done anyway. You just want to find out if you like the stuff.

I know, I know, those of you who are already using acrylics are shouting about a lot of other things, but for someone who just wants to try the paints without investing a week’s pay this will do the trick:

1. Two small tubes of artist quality paint. Titanium white and mars black. These will cost you about $10 each. Buy small but buy the good stuff. Paints that are too thin or don’t have enough pigment won’t cover well or teach you anything. I use either Liquitex or Golden paints most often but there are others which work very well.

2. Brushes. A small package of half a dozen or so assorted Acrylic or Watercolor brushes will be $10 or less. Try to stay away from the really cheap plastic brushes, they won’t help you.

3. Optional - Clear gloss or matte acrylic medium. This is the clear plastic which is the basis of the paint and you use it to thin your paints without watering them down. The smallest bottles I have found are 8 oz and should cost about $15. Larger bottles are a better value but hold off on them until you know what you want. You will want this someday but you don’t need it to get started.

4. Something to paint on. Heavy poster board or even cardboard will work for experiments now so you can save your money for canvasses later.

Now give it a try.

Jay HelfrichAugust 8, 2019