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Introduction – A brief history of acrylic paint

Acrylic Paint is medium we all have heard of and know today, but when was acrylic paint invented and who made it first? As an introduction, let us look into a timeline of acrylic paintings history and see where what we use today comes from?

Acrylic Paint came into being in the 1930s, in Germany first and then evolved.

“ “Acrylic paint was first developed in Germany in the 1930s by Otto Röhm, a chemist and pharmacist. Röhm invented acrylic resin, which he later turned into acrylic paint. The paint was originally used for house paint, but artists began experimenting with it in the 1950s after discovering its quick drying time and vibrant colours.” – Source: Edna Pines.

Two of today’s most popular artist acrylic brands, Golden Artist Colors Inc. and Liquitex, were pioneers in the creation of acrylic paints and mediums. After acrylic resin dispersion was invented in the 1930s in Germany, it was adapted by artist Leonard Bocour and Sam Golden (who went on to be a founder of Golden Artist Colors Inc.) in the creation of the first acrylic paint – a solution of spirit-based paint by the brand name “Magna”. Acrylics helped open up a whole new world for artists.
They could be used to create both watercolor-like thin effects and thick, impasto techniques, and could bind to almost any surface. Their faster drying time and bright colors made them ideal for emerging visual art movements like Pop Art.

Over the years, acrylics became more versatile as further methods for mark-making in this luscious and vibrant paint were explored. Soft body, a more fluid-consistency paint, was the first available acrylic paint. It was followed by many iterations such as heavy body acrylics, fluid acrylics, and pigmented acrylic inks, plus acrylic spray paints and markers. Their versatility makes them ideal for mixed media painting and collage, and with the advent of drying retarders and lines like GOLDEN’s OPEN Acrylics offering a slower drying time, their use in “Plein Air’ painting (painting outdoor landscapes while outside) has blossomed.

In their relatively short history, the possibilities of this versatile medium with professional grades offering high pigment loads, a multitude of viscosities, and dozens of acrylic mediums, the ways an artist can employ acrylics have become endless. Watch our acrylic videos here, or register for an acrylic Visiting Artist Demonstration at your local Opus for inspiration and techniques from BC artists on how they use acrylics in their work.” Source: Pinot’s palette.

“German chemist Otto Röhm and his business partner Otto Haas introduced the first acrylic emulsion designed for paint. In 1955, the first water-based acrylic paints became commercially available.” – Source: Study.com

“The first usable acrylic resin dispersion was developed in 1934 by German chemical company BASF, patented by Rohm and Haas. By the 1940s, acrylic emulsions quickly gained in popularity for home painting, as they were easier to use and clean and dried quickly. They were also far less toxic than many other paints. By the 1960s, more and more artists starting using acrylics, attracted by how cheap they were and the fact that they held colour well, dried quickly, were water-resistant when dry, and could resemble watercolour and oil paint. In 1955, to meet the demands of artists, Permanent Pigment Company developed the first water-based acrylic gesso, named Liquitex. A year later they put out their first water-based fluid acrylic paints.”

“Some of the very first artists to use acrylics were the Mexican Muralists, the most notable ones being Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. They started experimenting with acrylics due to the durability and practicality of the paint. The Politec Company was founded in Mexico City in 1953, and supplied most of the Mexican Muralists with water-based acrylics.” Source: The Artland Magazine

Why acrylic became a widely used medium in the world?

 There were multiple benefits of acrylic paints since that still makes it a popular and more convenient medium to work with, for artists. Abstract paintings for sale in Bengaluru and in general, canvas paintings in Bengaluru today widely range in acrylic paintings alone. Amongst the many advantages of acrylic paint, here are a few:

1. Versatility: Acrylic Paints are incredibly versatile. Whether it be the various kind of paintings created at art studios in Bengaluru, or art exhibitions in Bengaluru, abstract artists always enjoy the freedoms and liberties that the acrylic paint provides in terms of it being suitable for all painting – pouring, relief, abstract painting, portraiture, landscape painting, still life, classical, and so much more, all in its capacity.
2. Pace of work: Acrylic paintings dry very fast and therefore it helps accelerate pace of creating more acrylic paintings for sale, for abstract artists in Bengaluru and globally.
3. Non-toxic Paint: Having characteristics of being cleanable with water when wet, acrylic is not toxic or solvent based making it a healthy medium to work with as it is glue based.
4. Adaptive: Acrylic Paint is highly adaptive in nature and bends pillar to post to be highly mixable. It can adapt and work together with multiple mediums in case of mixed media works and multimedia projects.
5. Strength: Acrylic paints will not peel off or turn yellow like oil paint which is why chances against cracking and falling off make it stronger though it could fade after years due to natural reasons.
6. Permutations and Combinations: The spectrum of colours offered also is of course phenomenal in the acrylic paint medium. Possibilities are immense.
7. Surfaces: Acrylic paint can be used on a variety of surfaces such as canvas, linen, fabric, cement, wood, metal, ceramics, P.o.P, plastic, glass, paper, acrylic sheet and much more.

These are hence some of the most popular and fundamental advantages of working with acrylic paintings which is why it is so widely used amongst abstract artists in Bengaluru, and globally whether they display works in abstract art galleries in Bengaluru, or just generally put up their abstract paintings for sale in Bengaluru or elsewhere through their art studios in Bengaluru.

How should we use acrylic paint to create acrylic paintings?

To start with, here’s what we need to create an acrylic painting:

1. Surface – It could be canvas, any type of primed linen, paper or any of the surfaces as mentioned above as acrylic paint is highly adaptive.
2. Acrylic Paints – choices are a lot between brands, tubes, bottles, colours of choice and quality as well depending on type of paint needed, viscosity, purpose and much more.
3. Brushes – Could be flat brushes or round brushes which we get to purchase in sets or individual too – synthetic hair brushes depending on the size, quality and brand of choice as the requirement may be.
4. Palette – This facilitates mixing of colours and helps keep the paint clean and dynamic as we also need to paint fast since the medium dries fast. We get both dry palettes and wet palettes which are disposable.
5. Dry Cloth – To keep dabbing off the extra water after the washes of the brush so as to keep the water mixing with the paint in check and accurate in control.
6. Other Tools – One could also take the help of tools such as palette knives, painting wedges (catalyst silicon wedges), squeegees, paddle brushes and so many more tools with no end to possibilities such as yarn and so on.

These are basic requirements in order to be able to create a good acrylic painting. Now let’s look at some techniques with which we can create acrylic paintings.

What are the techniques of Acrylic Painting? 

1. Historic Art Movement Based Painting techniques – This could range from impressionist, fauvist, cubist, surrealist, abstract expressionist, futurist, suprematistic, modernistic, minimalistic, maximalistic, dadaist, classical, contemporary or hyper realistic to name a few. This implies that following in the footsteps of the already legendary artists in these historic movements, we as artists today get inspired by them and use their techniques to create our paintings.
2. Wet on Wet and wet on Dry – This means we paint a base coat and while it is wet we swiftly continue paintings the layers above as well mixing with the colours below and above, that’s called wet on wet. Wet on dry implies painting a base coat and waiting until it dries to paint the next layer wet. This ensures no colours from the bottom layer mix into the top layer ensuring separate layers in clear colourised demarcation.
3. Washes: This means paint is applied in thin fragile, swift drying layers to create thin multiple layers rather than thick few layers. This technique is used a lot in landscapes and to create fragile highlight and shadows in portraiture as well as in still life.
4. Pouring or Marbling: This has become popular off-late around the world where paints are poured onto the surface and then moved around in a systematic or sporadic manner to create layers of designs with the paint determining how much it flows and exactly how it looks which is very spontaneous as a method. These paintings can also have other liquid facilitator gels or liquid mattes mixed in them to create more liquidity or fluidity and smoother flow as acrylic paint is very thick and will not flinch if moved as a chunk of pure paint applied on the canvas with no tool but just hands and air across the surface frame.
5. Stippling – Similar to pointillism as a movement or Neo-Impressionism as we call it in art history, this technique involves creating tone, form, volume, outline, everything just with the usage of dots. Only dots. Just dots, dots and dots, whatever it be.
6. Splattering and Splashing – This means the surface is static but the tool or medium, one of it is used or set up to be respectively, in a dynamic way. Meaning, for example, I take liquidish paint and put it onto a palette knife or a spoon for example and just tap it hard onto the canvas then the paint splatters onto the canvas. Again, a spontaneous process based on the movement of the paint in air in relation to the tool used and the surface it shows up on. Splashing is when the paint is splashed with a brush or other tools onto the canvas or a tub/box pf paint for example is suspended in the air to create patterns and splashes on the surface that is kept facing it or not as the case may be.
7. Dabbing and Subtracting – In this process, paint is taken away or removed to create lighter tones or lines in such a way to create a form, with purpose of volume or lighting and so on. Dabbing is to use a cloth or other tools such as catalyst wedge to do the job while subtracting can be done using brushes or knives as the case may be – synonymous names for the technique
8. Underpainting and Overpainting -When we underpaint, it means we paint a layer thick and then paint it over with a thin layer to get the underpainted layer show up more and do the job while overpainting means we paint the under layer thick but with a dark layer for example and then paint a light coloured thick over layer too to keep the colours filtered and unconventional that way and at the same time overpainting can also mean to overpaint and cover a mistake too, to correct it.
9. Detailing and Lining – Detailed painting techniques are ones that involve elements in minute tiny detail such as line, dot, texture, colour, shape, scale, tone and much more on a microscopic level – miniscule and to the hilt of every pore mattering and making an evident different if not lined or in place.
10. Comic Style Painting and Pop Art – For example Roy Lichtenstein’s work where the painting itself looks so rich and luxuriant in bright, thick colour and outline that the painting itself looks like a printed comic. Popular technique of painting during the pop art period seeing artists such as Andy Worhol, David Hockney, Claes Odenburg and so on, Lichtenstein’s style became celebrated for its finesse and bright lushness.

Therefore, these are a few techniques listed amongst many many others.

Acrylic Paint or/and Oil Paint?

Though oil paints have been around for centuries before the advent of acrylic paint, why acrylic became so extensive in usage is fascinating, so let us look at some points to see how the two mediums are different from each other and what sets them apart as star mediums in their own right.

1. Invention and Introduction – While oil paint has been evidently in use in Asia since the 7^th century, it went to the west only in the the 15^th century and acrylic paint came into being initially itself only in the 20^th There itself we find the first marked difference in the usage of the painting mediums. While extensive usage of the oil paints began well over the 16^th century, acrylic’s extensive began just around 3 decades after its first discovery. Compositions and experimentations have of course invariably been made but it remains pretty much uniform in its character.
2. Nature of Pace – Oil paints on canvas can take upto 6 and 9 months to dry completely with premium materials and lush layering ior multiple layering on canvas to get ready for the varnishing stage while the acrylic paintings with as many layers can dry within 6 and 9 days or a maximum of a couple of weeks to reach the varnish stage so the pace is a world of difference for an abstract artist in Bengaluru exhibiting with abstract art galleries in Bengaluru or looking to sell abstract paintings in Bengaluru.
3. Odour and Strength – Oil paints have strong odour not only due to linseed oil being present in the paint itself as a pigment but also, the fact that we mix linseed oil and turpentine to paint with the medium definitely have strong smells and can be considered to be not as odour neutral as acrylic paint. Acrylic paint, some of them may give away that adhesive-like odour but the composition itself mixed with water to paint as basics has no strong smell or characteristic smells.
4. Creative Advantages for Perfection – Oil Paint allows a lot of time to cover up mistakes and a lot more flexibility with pigments to dab off, to exercise dark to light tones being easily coverable in comparison to acrylic where dark colours can take a few layers of light to cover up efficiently or light, thick layers take a few dark layers to cover up efficiently. Oil paint provides more flexibility with gradients, elemental corrections as far as intricacies are concerned.
5. Colour Spectrums and Depth – Oil Paint definitely takes into factorisation way more colours and variation in the spectrum cards than possible. Acrylic maybe cannot achieve as many shades or accurate shades as in real life while painting. I also feel personally as an artist that oil paints have more depth to offer both visually and conceptually translating in relation to acrylic and oil paint can be used more reliably thin and translucent or transparent than acrylic, which could fade over time very fast if applied translucently or with a lot of water due to pore observation or simply weathering even with varnish.

6. Process and Skill – While oil paints require stronger, specific brushes, they require linseed oil, turpentine, thinner and good oil paint to make a good oil painting with all good quality materials while acrylic paints can do with water and in case of relief or pouring maybe a texture gel or a pouring medium and so on. Therefore oil is more complex, layered, time-consuming and slow inevitably compared to acrylic paint which is easier to use, can also be layered but is invariably faster as a process. The skillsets required for both mediums are different but the basics remain the same in case of drawing and perspective or pictorial composition of course. This is mainly due to the way colour mixing, application and techniques of painting also work differently with both mediums and have their own nuances.

7. Base and Nature – While oil paint is oil based, debates go on about acrylic paint being glue based or water based. There is also marked differences in viscosity in both mediums and both mediums themselves each are available to buy in different viscosities to be able to be used accordingly. There is also nature of metallic paints, premium, sub-premium and super luxury brands in paints and also clean linseed oil and turpentine available to use with no dilution.

8. Lifespan and Restoration – Oil paint can last centuries and centuries while acrylic paint’s history itself today is hardly a century old and therefore we need to really see how long good acrylic paintings can really last. Restorations are according to me tend to be tougher in oil due to the extensive historic points in which paintings have been made but need to be restored in today’s day and age as if painted then, centuries ago. Therefore, maybe because acrylic is easier to use in terms of material and is still very tough to match colours with though, could be less difficult in comparison to oil paint.

9. Composition and Colouration – In terms of compositional prowess, as mentioned earlier, both mediums can yield amazing results but, oil has that realistic, deep edge over acrylic due to its composition and nature materials used to mix as well such as the linseed oil that give it that shine and thickness and the turpentine that gives it the fluidity and flow which we will inevitably need to agree looks and feels stronger than the flow one would get by just mixing only water alone. As far as colouration goes, the varnish and underlying oil seepages into the other side of the canvas could causes a yellow colouration above the painted layers which can be removed to reveal the original whitened colour of the paintings whereas that challenge we have not seen yet with the varnishes for acrylic painting.

10. Materials and Memory – Oil paintings have layers of various histories of the mediums and stories expressed by the mediums taking one back to the time when they were created with so much patience, skill and surrender, there can be nothing above honing the craft giving importance to quality and surrendering to the purpose of why we create art and the art of art itself

Therefore, oil paint and acrylic paint being the two dominant mediums in canvas paintings today have their own nuances, advantages, versatility and character.

It is up to us to choose which medium works for our painting – a creative decision by us as painters and as creators which needs to very much be made consciously and with filtered, thought about intention giving respect to the medium too, to be a crucial tool to play a ,monumental role in doing for the viewers, what we as creators want the painting to do.

About Sparsha By Radhika

Exploring possibilities through a variety of these artistic doors, at Sparsha by Radhika, we explore possibilities with concept and feeling to embed memorable experiences for our clients’ spaces to be energized in the most effective and special ways with our abstract paintings in Bengaluru. We work Pan India and Abroad.

Get in touch with Radhika to get going with your very own abstract painting!

Radhika is an abstract artist creating abstract paintings based in Bengaluru, servicing abstract art requirements for HNI homes and Commercial Spaces.

Check out her abstract paintings here.