Blend Acrylic Paint

Blending acrylic paint is an effective way to seamlessly mesh different colors into one painting. This method will help your painting look professional and beautiful. Here are a couple different ways to perform this technique in your own paintings.

Steps

Blending Using the Wet-on-Wet Method

  1. Wet your canvas before painting a base coat. Use a damp (not dripping wet, just damp) paintbrush to get your entire canvas wet. Then, also using a damp paintbrush, paint a base coat with a generous amount of paint.
    • For example, if you want to paint a blended sky, wet the entire canvas with water, and then paint a solid medium blue background.
    • For ease and speed, you can use the same paintbrush to wet the canvas and paint the background color.
    • For this method, you must work quickly and complete all the steps before the background begins to dry. Starting with a wet canvas will give you more time to work with than a dry canvas.
  2. Start blending. Take another color that you want to blend into your background and start sweeping it across the painted background.
    • You can use any type of brush stroke (sweeping horizontally, scumbling[1], etc.). It just depends on what you want the end result to look like.
    • For this step, you don't need to worry about cleaning your paintbrush between colors because it will simply add to the blended effect.
  3. Add more colors. Use your paintbrush to add more colors to your blended painting.
    • For the sky example, you might want to add darker blue to the top of the sky and white (and maybe yellow) to the bottom. This will create a darker sky at the top blended to a lighter sky at the bottom.
    • But remember, you must complete all of this blending before the paint begins to dry.
  4. Let the paint dry. Once the paint is dry, you should have a nicely blended finished product.

Blending Using Acrylic Glazing Liquid

  1. Paint a base coat. Let the base coat dry completely.
    • For example, if you want to paint a blended sky, paint a solid medium blue background and let it dry completely.
    • This method is better than the wet-on-wet method in some ways because you don't have to work as quickly. The glazing liquid does not dry as fast as the paint itself does, so this gives you more time to perfect the blending.
    • However, once the acrylic glazing liquid dries, you cannot paint over it anymore and you must wait until it is fully dry to start again if you need to continue blending.
  2. Use acrylic glazing liquid.[2] Dab your paintbrush in the color you wish to blend and add a generous amount of acrylic glazing liquid to your paint brush on top of the paint.
  3. Paint the color and the glazing liquid on the canvas. On top of the dried base coat of paint, sweep your brush back and forth to apply the blending color and the glazing liquid.
    • For the sky example, you might want to add the glazing liquid and some darker blue paint to the top of the sky and some white paint with the glazing liquid at the bottom of the sky. This will give a nice dark to light blend for the sky overall.
  4. Add more colors and more acrylic glazing liquid. Keep adding paint (of various colors) and glazing liquid.Repeat this step as many times as you need to in order to achieve the desired look.
  5. Let the paint and the glazing liquid dry. Once everything is dry, you should have a perfectly blended painting.

Blending Using the Wet-on-Dry Method

  1. Paint a base coat. Paint a base coat and let it dry completely. It should be darker then the color you want to blend over it, like black as the base coat to blending with grey.
    • Use sweeping horizontal lines to make your base coat.[3]
  2. Wait for the base coat to dry. The black base coat must be completely dry before you continue.
  3. Start blending the lighter colors. Using a damp paintbrush, paint a thin line of grey on the part you want to be the lightest in the painting.
  4. Use another paintbrush to continue blending. Take another brush, and dip it in water so it is damp.
    • You can also use the same paintbrush to add to the blending effect if you don't mind the previous colors being blended into the current colors.
  5. Blend the colors. Carefully whisk away some of the grey onto the black so they blend. Do this is in a controlled fashion. The end result will go from grey to dark grey to black.
  6. Let the paint dry. Once the paint is dry, you'll have a nicely blended dark to light painting.

Tips

  • Take your time.
  • You may have to touch up spots you miss or that the paint does not cover.

Warnings

  • This method takes practice and time; do not get discouraged.
  • Paint can stain clothes, so be careful.

Things You'll Need

  • Canvas or illustration board
  • Paintbrush
  • A cup of water
  • Acrylic paint, several colors
  • Acrylic glazing liquid

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Ft67tFCYg
  2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0zuQuH-0F8
  3. ↑ http://www.artistsnetwork.com/articles/art-demos-techniques/how-to-blend-acrylic-like-a-boss
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