Ready to take the exciting first steps in acrylic painting? In this comprehensive beginner’s class, artist Nina Weiss walks you through the basics, from choosing a palette and paint to fundamental techniques such as color mixing, layering and more. Practice your new skills with simple exercises and projects including a monochromatic painting and full-color still life. With Nina’s step-by-step guidance, you’ll be confidently using acrylics in no time!
Class Sessions
What You Need: Paint & Palette
21:15
Meet Nina Weiss and go over the tools and supplies you'll need to get started, including what paint and palette to buy.
What You Need: Brushes
13:34
Take a look at the different types of brushes available as Nina explains what each one does, plus cleaning and care instructions.
What You Need: Supports
14:36
The great thing about acrylic paint is that it will stick to almost any surface. Traditionally it's used on canvas. Here, Nina shows you various options for supports and how to gesso a pre-stretched canvas or board.
Method: Stretching Canvas
22:41
Nina walks you through constructing your own custom canvases, from buying supplies to finishing corners.
Method: Workspace
5:40
Having a clean and tidy place to work is essential for any artist! Nina shows you how to organize your workspace and arrange your lighting for maximum comfort while you paint.
Exercise: Value Painting of Geometric Shapes
39:06
Once your workspace is set up, you're ready to start painting! First Nina helps you select the right brush to achieve the correct paint consistency and opacity. Then she demonstrates edge-to-edge painting before sharing the various composition elements.
Exercise: Value Painting of Eggs
25:56
Continue value painting as you work on a representational painting of eggs. Nina teaches you how to use directional mark-marking, depth and contrast to make the eggs look round, and blend values to create smooth transitions.
Exercise: Monochromatic Painting of Eggs
30:04
Throw some color in the mix as you create a monochromatic painting using the same subject of eggs. Continue to practice the fundamentals: seeing light, re-creating form, mixing, edges and transitions.
Exercise: The Color Wheel
33:29
Now you're ready to create a color wheel! In this lesson, Nina teaches you basic color theory, from triads to temperature, and fundamental color mixing techniques.
Exercise: Neutralization Scales
25:44
After working with black, white and a single color, dive into the world of complementary colors: yellow/violet, blue/orange and red/green. Understand how neutralization works to open up your paint possibilities!
Exercise: Complementary Color Painting of Eggs
32:16
Use your new understanding of color theory and color mixing to create a painting of eggs using the complementary colors violet and yellow, as well as white.
Make It: Lemon Painting
42:26
Once you're comfortable mixing colors, adjusting values and working with complements, apply your new skills to a lemon still life. Nina helps you work from dark-to-light and thin-to-thick, look for full-range values and use complex colors effectively.
Your Instructor
Nina Weiss
In 1980, Nina Weiss left the cities of the East Coast for the farmlands of the American Midwest. The vast open spaces inspired her to begin her journey as a landscape painter. Today, Nina's work is represented in private and corporate collections throughout the United States, as well as in a variety of books and films. Nina taught for more than 18 years at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and she's currently teaching at Columbia College Chicago.
Bonus Material
Startup Library: Painting With Acrylic – Resources
Bonus Materials available for download after purchase.
FAQs
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