Use These Techniques To Paint Flawless Gradients Using Acrylic Paint

3/26/2024

If you've ever found yourself wrestling with the task of painting smooth, seamless gradients with acrylic paint, take comfort in the fact that you're not the only one. This is a common hurdle that many artists, both professional and hobbyist, face. The culprit behind this challenge is the fast drying nature of acrylic paint, which can make mastering gradients a bit of a puzzle. However, we're here to share some valuable tips that will make your gradient blending journey a breeze! Let's dive into our first tip!

1. USE A LARGE BRUSH

Here's my top tip for creating seamless gradients with acrylic paint, and it's a game-changer. Given the fast-drying nature of acrylic, using a larger brush can significantly enhance your blending process. With a larger brush, you can cover more surface area, work faster, and achieve those beautiful, smooth blends you've been aiming for. Remember, your brush doesn't have to be massive; just avoid using tiny detail brushes for blending. If you'd like to learn more about what shape of brush would be best for blending, check out our post on Paintbrushes Every Artist Needs In Their Arsenal!

2. SLOW DOWN DRYING TIME

Of course, you can work with your paint very quickly before it dries down, but that can be stressful and more hassle than it's worth! If you're like me and prefer to take your time, however, there is a way to slow the speed at which your paint dries, and no, it's not by switching to oil paint! It's a fantastic additive medium called retarder that slows the drying process of acrylic substantially, giving you ample time to get those beautiful seamless blends. The best part is that most craft stores like Michael's and Hobby Lobby sell it, so you don't have to go to a specialty art supply store to track it down!

3. USE THE RIGHT KIND OF ACRYLIC PAINT

Did you know there are different classifications of acrylic paint? Heavy Body, Soft Body, and Fluid are all useful for various styles and techniques! We're only going to talk about Soft Body today because it's the best kind for what you'll be doing: blending! The soft body has a lighter, creamy consistency, like yogurt or buttercream icing, which makes it ideal for blending. Here's why! Being a lighter but not watery consistency, it has enough substance to maintain excellent coverage and pigment, avoiding thin, patchy areas. Still, it's not so stiff that you can't get it smooth. It's the perfect happy medium and that's precisely why we include soft body in our painting kits!

PRACTICE YOUR GRADIENTS WITH OUR PAINTING KITS!

Our canvas painting kits include everything you'll need to make a painting you'll be proud of, from quality soft body acrylic paint in all of the colors you'll need, brushes, a pre-sketched canvas, and a full-length video tutorial to take you through all of the techniques you'll need to recreate our paintings your way!

Cherry Blossom Branch Canvas Painting Kit

Shop

Three Sunflowers Canvas Painting Kit

Shop

Sunrise Canvas Painting Kit

Shop

4. KEEP YOUR BRUSHES CLEAN

This next tip may seem obvious, but it's actually very easy to forget! The best way to avoid muddy blends is to clean your paintbrushes well between colors. For example, if you're doing a gradient from black to red to pink to white, you don't want a lot of color cross-contamination, so you'll want to clean your brushes between each section. There is no need to use soap either; just clean water and a paper towel or a rag will do the trick!

5. CONSIDER COLOR THEORY

Depending on the colors you want to blend, you may need some basic color theory info. Don't worry; it's not as complicated as it sounds! The most important thing to remember is that if you blend the wrong colors, they'll most likely turn brown or gray. The easiest way to avoid that is by using colors next to each other on the color wheel; for example, blending blue with purple will result in a beautiful, vivid color, whereas blending blue with orange will make brown. This is because complementary colors cancel each other out to create neutral colors. If you want to learn more about complementary colors and how they interact, check out our blog post on How To Choose A Cohesive Color Palette Using Color Theory!

ARE YOU MORE OF A VISUAL LEARNER?

We are too! That's why we made Acrylic Basics, where you can find video tutorials for gradients, mixing skin tones, splatter painting, and so much more!