Table of Contents
1. Introduction and disclaimers
2. Materials
2.1 Paints
2.2 Mediums
2.3 Brushes
2.4 Canvases
3. Preparation
3.1 About Gesso
3.2 Liquid White
4. Painting Process
5. Black Canvases
5.1 About Gesso... again
5.2 Substitution Bob's approach
6. Brush Care
6.1 Natural Brushes
6.2. Waste Water
7. About Primer
8. Additional tipps, experiences and notes
1. Introduction
If you havewatched a lot of Bob Ross’ "The Joy of Painting" you might have stumbled uponsome of the times he answered the question “Can this technique be done inacrylics?”. Quite disappointingly, his answer would always be the same:Unfortunately not. Acrylics dry very fast and we rely on our paint staying wetfor a long time.
But thatwas more than 30 years ago and here is what I am gonna tell you: A lot haschanged and improved in the world of painting materials and there are wonderfulmediums and special paints now that allow us to paint wet on wet using solelyacrylics and acrylic mediums. In this article I want to share with you mymethod of acrylic wet on wet painting. With the preparation done right and theright materials at your disposal you should be able to follow almost any ofBob’s lessons with the same brush strokes and techniques using acrylics insteadof oils!
Now beforeI take you down the path of acrylic wet on wet painting, here’s a bit of honestinformation about me, so you can decide for yourself if you want to regard meas a reliable source: I am not a painter with professional training. I startedmy painting journey, taught by myself and Bob’s videos, in autumn of 2021 andhave always been painting wet on wet. And I have always used acrylics to do so.After some disappointing setbacks in the beginning, I have made a lot ofexperience through internet research and testing and by now have frequentlybeen asked how I manage to do what I do using acrylics as a medium. If you wantto know what results I produce with my method feel free and have a look at my paintingsI post here on twoinchbrush or my Instagram (@hammipaints).
Note thatthroughout this article I might mention several brands of paints and materialsI use. I am not affiliated with any of those brands in any other way than thatI use them to paint my paintings. I am not trying to advertise but rather sharemy personal painting experiences with you.
2. Materials
In thissection I will list all materials I use. Entries spelled in bold are essentialto my technique. Entries underlined are recommended. Recommended entries with an asterisk (*) are highly recommended. An explanation foreach product line is given below the respective entry. I also will listrecommended uses for each kind of paint.
2.1. Paints
Golden OpenAcrylics - Titanium White
Golden Open Acrylics – Phthalo Blue, AlizarinCrimson, Sap Green, Hansa Yellow medium (stand in for the expensive cadmiumyellow, any yellow with similar hue and opacity should do)
Golden Open Acrylics – Burnt Umber, Bone Black,Prussian Blue, Yellow Ochre, Indian Yellow, Burnt Sienna, basically any coloryou want, I usually use Bob’s palette
Recommended uses: Liquid Base Color (See 3.2),Sky, Water, Northern Lights
“Open” is a product line of the “Golden” brand.They are special in the fact that they stay wet way longer than normal acrylicspaints. In my method I use those paints to mix liquid white equivalents andother liquid base colors. I also use them in my backgrounds and water,basically anything I want to blend easily and soft.
Liquitex Heavy Body – Titanium white(*)
Liquitex Heavy Body – Brown, Red, Blue, Yellow,Black (Any color you want to use heavily in mountains or clouds)
The “Heavy Body” paints from “Liquitex” arevery thick acrylic paints which make them excellent for mountain highlights andclouds. Also, contrary to most acrylic paints, they keep their texture andstructure and hold brush strokes even after drying. So for example: If you wantto have “touchable” bark on a foreground tree you can do that using this paint.They are harder to clean off the palette and the brushes though.
Recommended uses: Clouds, Mountains, Elementsthat are supposed to keep texture
Amsterdam Standard Acrylics – Any color youwant, I usually use Bob’s palette
You can use any other ordinary acrylic paintinstead. I simply prefer this product line.
The “Standard” acrylic paints form Talens Amsterdam are my favourite paintssince they are reasonably priced and of good quality. I use those forpractically everything else except blending areas, clouds and mountains.
Recommended uses: Anything not stated before.
Amsterdam Expert - Any color you want, Iusually use Bob’s palette
The “Expert” product line is of higher qualitythan the standard line. They are thicker and contain more pigment. Though theyare not as thick as liquitex’ heavy body acrylics, they may be a less expensivesubstitute. The mountain highlights do not come off as easy as with the heavybody paints though and you’d need to be even more careful if you want the paintto break. By now I only use these paints for foreground elements where I want abit more structure.
Recommended uses: Foreground elements which aresupposed to keep more structure/texture
2.2. Mediums
Golden Retarder
Golden Open Thinner
2.3 Brushes
- Brushes with a lot of hair as Bob recommends it for histechnique. If you don’t feel comfortable using BRI products due to the wholedocumentary controversy use whatever similar brushes you want.
- Some very soft brushes. I use soft goat hair brushes
- Some acrylic brushes come in handy sometimes
- Soft liner brushes. I for once have trouble using the BR
2.4 Canvases
- Double Primed (No Gesso! Explanation in chapter 3) WhiteCanvas
- I liked to use “Gerstaecker Basic” until I started buildingand priming my own canvases. Those canvases state to be primed with a“universal primer” (Universalgrundierung).
3 Preparation
3.1 About Gesso
(More about this and a summary of Information see Chapter 8)
So this is the first and, in my opinion, most importantlesson: Do not use canvases primed with gesso.
A lot of artists might tell you that it’s best to usecanvases primed with gesso or, even better, to apply additional layers of gessoyourself. And while that may be true in a lot of cases, gesso is an absolutedeath sentence for my acrylic wet on wet method to work.
Now I am not familiar with the technicalities and physicalor chemical background of why this is the case, but what happens when you applythe liquid white equivalent I use (see 3.2) to a gesso’d canvas is that thegesso will just suck the liquid white right up. It will get tacky and allaround uncomfortable to use right away.
Now you might ask: “But what should I use then? Aren’t allpre stretched and primed canvases primed with gesso?”
Well, since I am insecure about what materials you guys haveavailable where you live, I think the best approach is to simply tell you whatI use:
The canvases I use state to be primed with a “universalprimer” (Universalgrundierung). Unfortunately I have yet to understand whatexcactly that means. But if a Canvas you own or are about to buy says it’sprimed with gesso better do not use it for this technique. For my own canvasesI use the Gerstaecker White Acrylic Primer (Name as stated on their UK Website).
In my general experience cheap canvases tend not to beprimed with gesso but some other cheap primer. If you are uncertain whatcanvases are primed with gesso or not it might be best to ask someone from theart store.
“But what about Black canvases? Bob says to coat them inBlack Gesso!” I hear you ask. For an answer to that see chapter 5: Black Canvaspaintings
3.2 Liquid White
The very base of my method lies in having an acrylic liquidwhite equivalent. When I started out painting and naively realized, thatacrylics seemed not to be suited to paint wet on wet, I went on a littleinternet research trip were I stumbled upon a video on the “WildCreates”Youtube channel were the artist running the channel shares his recipe foracrylic liquid white which I have been using ever since. So credit were creditis due: Thank you very much Ryan, without you I would not paint what I do today!
You can check out the Video here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOZACe0v_Do. He also goes into a bit more depththan I do here.
I use the Formula of 50% Golden Open Titanium White, 40%Golden Retarder and 10% Golden Open Thinner.
You can use any Golden Open Color to mix any liquid base youlike! We also will need those for black canvas paintings (see chapter 5.)
The Painting Process
In this chapter I want to guide you step by step through atypical white canvas painting using my method. Let’s use Bob’s “Towering Peaks”as an example. I will focus on what paints touse in my description. Brush/Knife techniques/strokes stay the same if not statedotherwise. Note that I do not exclusively include essential materials in this part. If you're on a budget see chapter 8.
Step 1: Apply a thin even coat of acrylic liquid white tothe canvas. The rule of the “fingerprint test” is applicable.
Step 2: Apply background and water color using Golden OpenPhthalo Blue.
Step 3: Blend
Step 4: Do the clouds using a Heavy Body Titanium whitepaint, I recommend Liquitex
Step 5: Blend. I prefer an especially soft brush to blendthe clouds. I use soft goat hair brushes for that
Step 6: Do the mountain base using normal acrylic paint. Besure to scrape off excess as Bob does it before blending
Step 7: For the mountain highlights use Heavy Body Titaniumwhite paint, I recommend Liquitex. Mix with a bit of blue for the shadows.Since you don’t need much of the blue, normal acrylic paint should sufficewithout thinning down the heavy body paint too much. If you want to be sure usea heavy bodied blue paint to mix with the white.
Step 8: Follow Bob’s further instructions using your normalacrylic paint.
Step 9: Regarding reflections: Usually the canvas shouldstill be wet enough so you can continue using normal acrylic paints. However,if you’re insecure you can use open acrylics for the reflections.
Step 10: Continue to the foreground until finished usingnormal acrylics. For bush-highlights I like to use Amsterdam Expert for a bitmore structure but only if the base color is already relatively dry. OtherwiseI’d be mixing mud.
5. Black Canvas Paintings
5.1 About Gesso... again
As already stated in Chapter 3, Gesso is some mean stuff regardingthis method. Instead, if you need to make a black canvas for nighttime or deepforest paintings you can simply apply a thin (but still dark enough) coat ofblack acrylic paint. Thicker coats have a similar effect as gesso on the liquidbase. You can even thin the black paint down or spray the canvas with water,which not only thins the paint down but allows for a fast and slick applicationof color. You will have that canvas covered in no time!
5.2. Differences to Bob's approach
As most of you will have noticed, Bob Ross approaches blackcanvases a bit differently than white canvases. Usually what he would do is tofirst cover the canvas with a very thin even coat of liquid clear, beforeapplying a base coat of one or more colors (e.g. a lavender mix for “Waterfallin the woods”).
Now how do we tackle the challenge of applying this methodto acrylics? There probably are more solutions to this but the most reliable isthe following:
Instead of looking for a liquid clear equivalent, we insteadapply our liquid white formula to other colors. So for Waterfall in the woodswe would mix 50% Open Lavender Paint(mixed), 40% Retarder and 10% open thinner andapply it just like we would with the liquid white. Basically we use a liquid base color instead of any color Bob puts on for a first layer.
This way we do not even need liquid clear!
We can now go about our painting as with the white canvasones: Use open Paints for Backgrounds, Water and reflections, ordinary acrylicsfor most of everything else and heavy body for clouds, mountain highlights andwherever we want a lot of structure.
6. Brush Care
6.1 Natural Brushes and Water
As you probably have heard, natural brushes usually are notrecommended to work with acrylics, water based paints or to be washed usingwater in general. Most mentioned issues being the fraying of the bristles anddamage done to the hair by using soap and water to wash the brushes.
However in my experience we can absolutely work with naturalbrushes and wash them with soap and water, if we do it correctly.
One basic rule of thumb for washing natural brushes with soapis, to not use products you would not want to use on your own hair. So dishsoap for example is a big no-no. The product I use is “The Masters’ BrushCleaner and Preserver”. Though expensive, this is the best brush cleaner I havecome across yet.
Personally I have been using natural brushes since I havestarted painting and I have started using Bob Ross natural brushes shortlyafter. The most annoying issue I had was how extremely the bristles spread outalready after the first wash. For an hour or so I was devastated until Istumbled upon one very helpful video from “Painting with Yovette”.Unfortunately she set that video to private due to reasons unknown to me so Ican not share it with you. But based on her video, here is what I have doneever since:
1) Thoroughlybut gently wash my brushes using The Masters Brush Cleaner right afterpainting. There are mats you can rub the brush against to get rid of semi-driedchunks of paint. Be sure to not let too much water into the ferrule since itcan (over time and in the worst case) damage the glue that keeps the bristlesin.
2) Forbrushes prone to fraying (e.g. 1inch, 2 inch, etc…): Fold and wrap the bristlesin paper towel. This will keep the bristles from spreading out.
3) Hang thebrush bristleside down so water can escape the ferrule and leave hanged andwrapped until dry for (1 to 2 days)
Brushes you don’t wrap can be simply layed on paper towel.You can position them in an angle so water can escape the ferrule.
I’ve had my Bob Ross brushes since Christmas 2021 and I haveyet to encounter problems with this technique.
6.2 Waste Water
When washing brushes with soap and water naturally we willhave at least some waste water. Now while I am not looking to be patronizingI’d like to point out, that, depending on where you live, spilling acrylicpaint down the drain (thinned down or not) might not be allowed, discouraged ordownright illegal, due to the environmental impact and possible impact to theground water. And unregarding of where you live it certainly is harmful foryour pipes since it can accumulate and clog them. Since I am suggesting here towash your brushes this way I feel responsible to offer a solution.
Thankfully the solution is easy: Cat litter. Simply keepyour washing water in a container and use cat litter to thicken that stuff upuntil almost solid. At that point you can just throw it in the trash.
Another Method would be to keep the water in a flat container and simply let it evaporate over time. The paint will be left at the bottom as residue once the water is gone. However, if you paint regularly, this method takes long and takes up quite some space.
7. About Primer
Incidentally as I was writing this guide I received questions from another painter who triedpainting using my approach. And while it mostly went well, said painterencountered problems with the liquid white drying up too fast. In ourconversation we narrowed down the problem: The canvas was primed with Gesso.Now as stated before, I don’t know why this is the case from a technicalstandpoint but from experience I know that Gesso and thick layers of acrylicpaint suck up the acrylic liquid white real fast.
The solution is seemingly simple: Get a primer with lowabsorbancy. But here is where we stumbled upon the next issue: While I have noproblem obtaining such a primer where I live (I get mine from Gerstaecker, theysell their own product as “White Acrylic Primer”), the person I was chattingwith lives in America and seems to struggle finding a primer that does the job.
Because I want my approach to work for you regardless ofwhere you live, here is all the information I know about the topic.
- Lowabsorbency
- Not toothick of a coat
- Chunksof dried primer in my bucket kind of feel similar dried house paint
- “Schmincke”products seem to be available in the USA. They have an acrylic primer thatclaims to be only “slightly absorbent”. I have no experience with theproductbut it might be a lead.
- CheapCanvases where I live claim to be primed with “Universal Primer(Universalgrundierung)”. Those Canvases worked well for me before I startedmaking my own canvases.
- Anotherpainter on Reddit suggested using house paint. I asked them about cracksforming over time and his answer was, that he had not observed that. Thepaintings he primed with house paint he has had for ~25 years now.
I will add to this when I find new Information. Also itwould be awesome if you people have more insight and are willing to share yourknowledge!
8. Additional tipps, experiences and notes
- I am aware that quite a few of the materials I use arerelatively expensive. However, absolute the minimum you need can get you quitefar already. Assuming you already have a canvas and some run of the mill acrylicpaints, the absolute minimum is the liquid white equivalent, so you will need:
-Golden Open Titanium White
-Golden Open Thinner
-Golden Retarder
Which should cost you about 30 to 40 bucks judging from whatI pay where I live but last relatively long, depending on what canvas size youuse.
Everything else special that I list will likely improve yourresults.
- If you don’t want to invest in additional open colors: Youcan absolutely paint your backgrounds (and reflections) using normal acrylicsif you don’t need much blending work or work fast. However, depending on howmuch blending work you do, you might want to pay attention to how much yourpaint dries up. Once normal acrylics are added to the wet canvas, drying timeof the wet base is reduced significantly and using a dry brush (for example forblending) will reduce drying time as well.
- If you don’t want to invest in Liquitex heavy body paint:You can spread your acrylic paint on you pallet. It will thicken up quite fast.Don’t wait to long though, since it may also dry up completely
- If you don’t want to invest in the Masters Brush cleaner:You can most probably use any other brush friendly soap. I simply prefer theMasters because of it works as a preserver as well and because of how cautiousI am with my more expensive brushes.
- Liner brushes with “less spring” tend to work better forthis technique. I have had stiffer liner brushes leave unwanted stroke markseven though the paint had the right consistency.
- Do your blending areas and reflexion as soon as yourcomposition allows it
- You can use water to thin your paint down, you don’t haveto use thinner. BUT:
- Do not use water on areas you still want to be able toblend. For some reason, the water seems to react with the thinner/retarder mixand drastically reduces drying time
- to leave my brushes hanging to dry I simply stuck a peaceof thread to the handle using duckt tape
- Acrylics are an excellent medium to paint a littlebackground design for ovals and other silhouette paintings, regardless if youpaint in oil or acrylics. Here’s how I do it:
- spraythe canvas with water, spread with the brush
- playaround with colors of my choice, often thinned down with water (dabs, streaks, whatever floats my boat in that moment)
- blendwhile still wet
- Reuse undried leftover paint to make black canvases! Youcan just mix all your undiluted leftover colors together to achieve a nice, atleast black-enough color.
9. Wrap Up
If you made it down here: Thank you so much for reading! This article was more work than I expected and I really appriciate you taking your time to read it. If you have further questions don't hesitate to ask, I'll gladly answer anything you guys come up with. Also if you have anything to add feel free to leave a comment as well! Let's use our collective knowledge to perfect acrylic wet on wet painting!
Also if you liked this guide: I would be so glad if you followed me on instagram @hammipaints. I am really trying to build a following there to get my art out into the world. Every follow counts.
Now have a good day, night, week, month, year and happy painting to you all!
