Acrylic vs Oil Paint | Which is Better for Learning?

I LOVE the fact that you reveal your premise at the beginning. Such honesty prompted me to watch the entire video, even though I've been exploring the idea of getting started with acrylics.

Can we use maries oil paints?

All what I needed to know is in this video. Thank u man ❤

I decided to get into painting a couple years ago. I tried cheap acrylic and cheap brushes and was extremely disappointed. I’m bull headed though and wanted to overcome the shortfalls of what I started with. I went with artist grade heavy body acrylics, upgraded my brushes and the difference was huge. Next was switching to a long open acrylic. More expensive again but it fits the bill at this point. I do regret not starting with oil as I have researched it and determined that most of the reasons I decided against using oil were actually incorrect or were mitigated by using different products. The open product seems to give me what I need though so oil isn’t in my near future.

I thaught myself with acrylics. I got really nice results, but cannot escape the cartoonyness in portraits as the blend is not as smooth. I am going to try a faster drying oil next painting.

Just phenomenal. Wish you lived on Cape Cod. I started with oils, switched to acrylics, then took a LONG hiatus---sailing, etc.---and now want to go back to painting my realistic seascapes and boat "portraits", Do you have any beginner's books you might recommend?

thank you

Thank you for giving me permission to make the switch.

ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow/red and titanium white are the ones that i use all the time 😔 i didnt know i should avoid them 😔 can you suggest me alternatives for these tree colors (blue,yellow,red)? thanks and i wish you a happy new year!☺️♥️

Best real answer with evidence out there.

I've wondered about this...
Unfortunately I am on my 35th acrylic now.
I bought oils.ty

I'll say only one thing: I want to paint on paper...
...WHITHOUT gesso..!!!

Whoa! When i first started out painting it was oil. The slower drying time of oil is so helpful. I tried doing stuff in acrylic that i can do with oil and it was hard and unsuccessful. Well, duh. They are two different mediums. I was suprised to see my acrylic paint start changing texture and become hard to blend ...well it just started clumping or globbing up. Oil is lovely to work with.

Transparent oil paint is fun to play with. 😊

I bet my mom wished i had been using acrylics when 3 years old. Lol. While visiting my relatives farm everyone went to pick vegetables for dinner. My mom drove us to the field in her car and all the adults got out to start picking. Maybe because of snakes or something me and my 3 year lod uncle were left in the car. After a while i got bored. Looking around in the car i found my moms oil paints. I decided to do something nice for my mom and decorate her car! I loved colors. We were not allowed out of the car so i painted so many colors on the interior. Not the glass, but everything else. That kept us quiet and busy for quite some time. I was absolutely thrilled to make the car pretty for my mom. I dont remember getting punished. But oil paint has a sliw drying time. I wonder how long it took for the car upholstery to dry?

I learned painting with acrylic colors only, i want to try oil paint, i think it improve my comfidence, the whole time I'm using acrylic, I'm not free because you have to speed up the blending before the paint dries

I thought it was just me I realised my paints were acrylic I was confused how to blend them well like the other tutorials w portraits and such but oil paintings r so good

Acrylic dries as soon as it’s on the brush lol

I really like this video. I’ve always wanted to paint with oil. This might be what makes me take the leap. Learning and painting with acrylic was sooooo stressful! I felt pressured and like I was always chasing time. I felt like I wasn’t learning the skills completely because there was always so much to think about (like paint drying) 😂 anyway all this to say, that experience made me not want to paint anymore. But now I’m thinking about starting with oil and building my skill from there. Such a beneficial video, thank you!

I took a painting class before the pandemic and we were using oil paints. That was my first experience really understanding the fluidity of oils and how well they blend, in comparison to acrylic paints

I have a cocker spaniel and am concerned with the smell and toxicity of oil painting 😢.

Bro looks like Captain Gutt from Ice Age 4

I can think of one thing acrylics can do that oils cannot, you can thin acrylic paint down to the consistency of ink (or just buy it as acrylic ink) and then apply it with a pen, either a dipping pen with a nib or a paint marker for dead straight lines. You can also spray acrylic with an airbrush. I'm not sure you can do those things with oil paint. (Maybe you can, but I haven't heard of it.)

I live in a desert, acrylics are a bear, even with medium.

oil, no thanks. i love acrylics. can’t stand using oils. acrylics rule

I paint with both media. When painting with acrylics, I often use the dry painting technique for smooth transitions. But that is time-consuming. There is a good trick to prevent acrylic paint from drying quickly on the palette. Simply moisten a sheet of kitchen paper with water and then put the acrylic paint onto it. This prevents the paint from drying quickly on the palette. The paints stay moist as long as the kitchen paper is moist and can therefore be used for 1 to 2 days.

Do you have a list of the basic skills and in what order they should be learned?

I prefer gouache and colored pencils i cant achieve realism without pencils so good

Dont use water use a glaze and use Golden open acrylics. I have seen acrylic art that looks just like oil

i can't watch because this mf is mogging me too hard !

Would this advice apply to Water mixable oils?

What's the best brand for beginners to use l will appreciate it if take the time and tell me thank you

I can say from experience that learning with oils is indeed easier than learning with acrylics. For beginners, every step is going to take longer, from mixing colours to the painting process, and it's harder with acrylics because they dry so fast - on the palette, on brushes and on the canvas.

Oils give you time to mix colours at leisure, to apply paint to canvas, to wipe off areas if they don't work out and to repaint while the paint on the canvas is still wet, so the repainted area can be blended more seamlessly into the surrounding area. One also doesn't have to worry about paint drying on brushes during a session. Oils give you the time and space to focus on learning the skills.

All of this I learned on my own through trial and error, and I'm glad that this video has confirmed my experiences and conclusions about which medium is the easier one for beginners.

When I was a student, I used oil frequently but I got sick of the smell and the longtime of its drying period I decide to go to acrylic.

Both oil and acrylic has their strength and weaknesses. Acrylic is harder to master due to its short drying time, sure. But you can also turn that on its head and say acrylic helps you become better at blending colors on canvas faster. Adding a drying time retarder will also help with blending. All it takes is planning your blending and practice. You will fail and see mixed results but you will be proficient faster because you work faster, you dont need to wait hours and days for your painting to dry for the next layer or section. The biggest factor for me is the toxic fumes from oil paint associated solvents and thinners, and the toxic trash. Cleaning acrylic I scrape off the excess paint before rinsing in water to minimize water pollution.

I haven't watched this video to the end, but note: it also depends on your painting style.

Watercolorist here. I've been pondering trying either acrylics or water-soluble oils, and this video really helps my decision-making. I've always encouraged beginner watercolor artists to use the best quality paints and papers they can afford, so your opening points resonate with me. Thank you!

The man himself is a painting . ......❤😂😂😂😂😂😂 Hahaha thanks for the video

Ive painted two acrylic paintings in the last two weeks and i can really feel this hobby taking a grip of me. Im running out of my acrylic paints and as of now, i want to paint everyday. Oil paints for sure seem like the way to go, i hated how fast acrylics dried and i love to do blending and it was harder than i expected with acrylic.

Thank you for this video, it was so helpful! Now i just need to find out what techniques should i be learning and in what order. I don't have money for fancy courses right now :/

Wish i seen this before i bought a bunch of Arcrylic paint i still managed to psint some beautiful pieces but blending is definitely hard af with Acrylic but doable

I totally agree. I have always admired people who can paint with acrylics. In my case, the temptation of speed always ended in endless corrections, and chasing changing colors on the canvas. It seems to me that oil also simply looks better right out of the box, more organic, while acrylics have something plastic about them. It takes great skill to be able to achieve results with acrylics similar to oil paints.

As a super nervous person especially about his art skills you made me super relax , reminds me of Bob Ross

i usually add a 2nd layer to smoothen out the acrylics

that is all so true! There's also the person who doesn't speak, just puts up a cryptic caption about every 60 seconds meant to explain the next step.

I thought Rembrandt oil paint is of higher quality but it smells really bad in comparison to other oil paints such as Schmincke Norma, for instance.

Oh dear. Fast drying is bad for learning, you say. I just bought gouache to learn with.

I think it comes to also what kind of paintings you want to paint. I started out with acrylics because I like how vibrant and mat the colors are. I like to paint mainly in an illustration way. I just started oil yesterday and I did find it very relaxing because it never dries and you can’t do really do mistakes as it’s very easy to correct. However it’s hard to do the kind of illustration I love so now am gonna mix both. For example do the background in acrylic, let it dry and paint my funny characters in oil and really have fun with it. I am a bit hyper so the drying part with acrylics was always very stressful for me. Can that work? Thank you for a great video!

What the paint color on the wall? Love the green against the brown

If you can learn to paint with acrylic you can breeze it with oil lol

I love this! thank you.. makes perfect sense to me