Basics In Blending Acrylic Paint For Beginners

If you are just getting started in your creative journey with acrylic painting, this is a great place to start!  We are going to paint a sunset sky today and really work on some simple techniques for blending acrylic paints. Once you get this down, you will have the ability to do so much more.

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Basics in Blending Acrylic Paint For Beginners The Social Easel Online Paint Studio 3

Brush Size Matters

Creating smoothly blended backgrounds is one area that the size of the brush you decide to use will absolutely affect your final outcome. Let your brush do the work for you and cover more surface area! Your brush doesn’t have to be huge if you are working on a standard size canvas. I recommended and used a 1-inch flat paintbrush for most of my paint blending.

You need to use the right amount of paint on your brush.

The number one thing I see people struggle with when they first try acrylic painting is that they don’t use enough paint on their brush when blending. It may seem like a lot of paint at first, but to blend a smooth background like a sky, you need a large 1 inch flat brush loaded up with paint.

The key is to keep your surface wet with paint so that you can make multiple passes with your brush to combine the colors just how you want them. If you aren’t using enough paint, your brush will skip and tug against the dry canvas.

Basics in Blending Acrylic Paint For Beginners The Social Easel Online Paint Studio

Overlap your color transitions.

You want your colors to have seamless transitions from dark to light and from one color to the next. This will only work if you follow tip #1!

Acrylic paint dries pretty quickly, so you will have to work fast using long brush strokes across the full length your canvas. Don’t stop your stroke mid canvas, take each pass over the edge. Make multiple strokes passing over and under the transition line to make it disappear.

You can always go back over, with more paint, to make your colors brighter wherever you choose.

Basics in Blending Acrylic Paint For Beginners The Social Easel Online Paint Studio

In the video below, I add landscape using some simple painting techniques. I do this by adding layers to the painting, a foreground, mid-ground, and background. You can try that out or keep it simple.

Practice blending acrylic paints on your mixed media pad with just a sunset and ground to make a super simple landscape. As you gain confidence, add the other elements.

Basics In Blending Acrylic Paint and a Simple Landscape

Post a picture and share what you learned on The Social Easel Facebook Page! I would love to see what you create.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Painting is your break away from the world and can be so relaxing. Take these simple techniques for blending acrylic paint and apply them to whatever painting you want.

Stay Creative