Recommended Acrylic Painting Supplies and Resources

Because I like to share as much information as I can about my process with other artists, I thought I'd put together a resource list outlining the supplies I use most often. I've found these to be the best for my purposes (painting realism/hyperrealism, using lots of acrylic glazes). 

I'm also including the books I consider to be essential in my art library, all of which really continue to help me build my painting skills.

Thanks for visiting!

Painting Supplies

Golden Heavy Body Acrylic Paints - Although I've experimented with other acrylic paint brands in the past, for the last several years I have used only Golden Acrylic Paints exclusively. I typically use heavy body paints, though for certain purposes I occasionally use fluid paints. 

Golden Satin Medium - I use satin medium to glaze my layers of paint, using a ratio of about 70 percent medium and 30 percent water. This keeps everything working well and ensures the paint layers are strong and stable. 

Ampersand Gessobord - I use Ampersand Gessobord for many of my pieces, unless it requires an odd size. In those cases, I typically work with a custom panel builder.

American Easel Panels - On a few occasions, I've started using American Easel Panels, which are built really well. My only criticism is that the pre-gessoed panels have some deep grooves in the gesso, so I usually have to add a couple of extra gesso layers and then sand to get a smoother surface. 

Princeton Synthetic Sable Brushes - I use some pretty small brushes for most of my work, down to 5/0. These synthetic watercolor brushes are my personal favorite. I've tried other more expensive and less expensive, but these are best for my work and my budget.

Masterson Sta-Wet Palette - This is a great rectangular palette with a lid. I line my paints up on a folded wet paper towel on the left side and use the rest of the space as a palette. 

Blick Palette Paper - A great and affordable disposable palette paper. Ultimately, any type of good coated palette paper is fine; you want the paint to glide across it, not soak into it. 

Bounty Paper Towels - I use paper towels both to dab extra paint or water off of my brushes and to keep my paint wet all day on my palette. To keep acrylic paint wet, fold over two or three paper towels to make a long strip, wet it, wring out the extra paper, and put your dabs of acrylic paint directly on it in your palette to keep the paints from drying out.

Diamond Daily Mini Cups - I use these cups for a variety of purposes that are perfect for my style of painting. I love them because they are small, disposable and have lids. They are great for little water cups that sit on my easel, for holding my acrylic medium and for mixing colors. Mixing acrylic colors can be a real challenge because it's tough to mix the same color twice due to the color shift of wet acrylic paint versus dry. It is not like oil painting. So I mix what I need in these little cups and store them with their lids on in a ziplock bag, and the paint will still be wet for a few days to a week.

Sandpaper - 400 grit and 1500 grit. I use sandpaper a lot, to gently remove little specks of hair or dust from my pieces, or to wet-sand panel edges or sometimes gesso layers, if I'm adding extra to a panel.

Richeson Lyptus Easel - Richeson easels are the best. I've actually met the artist whose easel designs were purchased by the Richeson company years ago and used on their easels. It's about the ease of use.

Recommended Books

You'll notice that most of my recommended books are targeted at oil painters, even though I paint in acrylics. But I have found that most acrylic technique books teach a direct painting style, rather than glazing, and they don't focus a lot on the classical structure and critical eye that I wanted. So I had to adapt what these books taught to my acrylic methods. In the end, my only goal is to create art that is beautiful and compelling, and these authors continue to provide me with the best insights.  

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney

Classic Still Life Painting by Jane Jones

Acrylics The Watercolor Alternative by Charles Harrington

Problem Solving for Oil Painters by Gregg Kreutz

Painting Sharp Focus Still Lifes by Ken Davis and Ellye Bloom

Happy Painting!

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