My Favorite Materials for Acrylic Painting

Today, I want to share some of my favorite painting materials that I use in my studio. I get asked so frequently about what tools or paints I use. So I thought this post would come more handy!

My materials are my little coworkers, my team members. When I'm ready to start a new painting, I have a look at them, I have a little mental checkpoint on which colors to start with, which brushes to use, and so the team of the day forms and off we go working on our new piece and giving it our best shot. Having a good team matters!

I truly believe in good quality materials. It took me only a short while of trial and error and some tossed away brushes and paints along the way to realize this… Better quality paints and brushes go a long way and help me produce results that I love.  It is like hiring people for the job, wouldn't you want to hire individuals with good skills to help your department reach success?  (Lol… a little reflection from my past corporate life memories)

My experience is with acrylic paints, and therefore my tips in this post are covering acrylic paints and mediums, and brushes and tools that work well with acrylics and with my creative techniques and style.

Acrylic paints

Golden is my preferred line of paint - I love their high pigmentation.  I use:

• Golden Fluid Acrylic paint

• Golden High Flow Acrylic paint

I so use some colors from the Liquitex soft body acrylic series as well (specially when it is a color that I am not able to find with Golden). Regardless what brand you pick, I really recommend trying good quality (artist quality) paints - it will likely make a difference in your paintings. And if you use other brands so far that are not artist grade, you can still mix things up and bring in a couple high quality paint colors (like Golden) into your art practice and just try them out.

Acrylic mediums

While you don't have to use mediums depending on what your painting style or technique is, this is a big one for my creations. One feature of mediums is that they extend the acrylic paint  - acrylic paint dries fast but the medium will let the paint stay wet for a longer time so you have more time to work with it. They also help in creating nice translucent layers. In fact, mediums help create many different effects (that I still keep discovering every time I paint).  I use the Golden range of mediums. There are so many types of mediums. My favorites so far are:

• Golden Glazing Liquid: A thicker fluid medium, great for glossy and translucent glazing and layering effects, great to use with a spatula or painting wedge. But also good for glazing with a brush. If there was only one medium I would use, I would say this is the one. It helps me with creating a lot those translucent effects in my work that I really love.

• Golden Airbrush Medium: Very fluid almost water like, good for wetting canvas or wetting paint, or for mixing with paint to spread translucent layers onto to a wide surface.

• Golden Soft Gel Gloss: A thicker paste like medium for some thicker glazing and layering effects, great to use with a spatula, painting knife, or painting wedge.

Other brands carry these type of mediums too, so you can try them out.  I find its’ best to stick with good artist quality brands for best results.

Golden fluid acrylic paints

Brushes

Based on a lot of experimentation my favorite so far is the Liquitex Freestyle flat brush series. Their bristles are firm and very smooth. I personally love "firm" synthetic bristles as I love how they hold well (and don't become mushy)  once they become wet with acrylic paint or mediums.

Depending on your painting style you may not want a flat brush but a round brush or other types. Flat brushes work well in my own creations as they allow for smooth blends and work great for layering effects, and wide strokes that I love.  I currently use brush sizes from 2 inch to 8 inch.

If you're interested in trying this type of flat brush for abstract painting,  you can start with the 3 inch paddle brush. It is not too big but wide enough to give you a broad enough brushstroke and blending power..

Liquitex Freestyle 3-inch paddle brush

Other Tools

Last but not the least, some of my best friends in the studio are painting scrapers and spatulas.

• The Princeton Catalyst Silicone Wedge W-06

This is the tool I get the most questions about when I share work on social media. This is the tool that creates some of those interesting textures and I use it in all of my paintings so far. It is a silicone paint scraper and it is very versatile and very fun to use. You can create many different styles and textures with it - possibilities are quite endless. And I still like to explore with it all the time.

• Squeegees

They come in all shapes and sizes and the best is to experiment with a few of them.  They work well to move large amounts of fluid paint (possibly mixed with medium or water) on the canvas to create broad shapes and layers. I like introducing some of their effects on some of my large paintings.

Working with the Catalyst Wedge W-06

You can play with a few of these and see which you like to work with most. It is all very personal and you will feel naturally inclined to use some materials more than the other, and that is the point.  Experiment, play, and find what style and tools you enjoy the most!

I demonstrate how I use many of these materials to create abstract paintings and how I build a transparent effect with mediums in my course called "Vibrant Layers with Acrylics & Mediums".  You can find out more about this learning opportunity over here .

Comments

• Dani
  February 27, 2019 at 4:11 pm 
  
  I’m also curious as to what type of varnish you use? Thanks!! 

  • Deniz Altug
    March 1, 2019 at 2:42 pm
    
    Hi Dani, so far I used the Golden Polymer Varnish with UVLS (Satin or Gloss depending on the painting). I might add this to the blog post 

• robert m cypher
  March 25, 2019 at 5:20 pm 
  
  Deniz, I love your work. It is the most creative fluidity that I have experienced in years. You have a wonderful eye for color and breaking all barriers of structure and design. I think coming out of the corporate world (as I did also) and experimenting in the abstract world you have finally found unstructured relief from your previous life. Your work is outstanding, fresh and scintillating.
  So happy I found your site.
  Bob

  • Deniz Altug
    March 28, 2019 at 4:20 am
    
    Hi Bob, thanks a lot for your kind comments!! Your observation about “finding unstructured relief” is on point and it’s great that you can relate to this. Happy you’ve come to my site!

• Anjali
  April 5, 2019 at 12:06 pm 
  
  Thank you Deniz love your work and style it really inspires me would love to take your online course waiting for that pls keep on sharing this good vibes and good energy 

  • Deniz Altug
    April 7, 2019 at 8:53 am 
    
    Thank you Anjali! Happy to inspire!

• Sherry
  August 2, 2019 at 4:19 pm 
  
  It would be great if you could add links to these products. You could add an Amazon affiliate page so you would make a bit each time your link is used.
  I love your free style way of working.

  • Deniz Altug
    August 4, 2019 at 5:48 pm 
    
    Thanks for the feedback Sherry. Will look into creating a list with links soon…

• Silke Jantz-Naeem
  May 8, 2020 at 1:12 pm 
  
  Hi Deniz, working with a catalyst wedge, how “liquid” should the paints be? Do u dilute them or use them straight from the tube/bottle?
  And I absolutely love ur work 

  
  Thanks, Silke

  • Deniz Altug
    May 8, 2020 at 8:05 pm
    
    I usually use fluid acrylics (I like Golden) so there’s no need to dilute, straight from tube is ok. But you can really try any consistency when it comes to paint – there’s no one best way of how a catalyst can be used. I just personally prefer fluids