The Essential Types of Paints for Every Artist

 Whether you are a beginner or a professional artist, there are some essential tools that you cannot be successful without, and those are canvas, brushes, and paints. While the canvas is the painting surface, the paint is a tool that provides the colour, and the brushes are the ones that apply the paint to the surface, giving it meaning. 

Investing in quality painting art sets is crucial for having a successful outcome and having a good start, even for a beginner, and out of all supplies, it's the paint that's the most important one. While the painting surface can be made from a selection of materials that seem good to paint on, it's the paint that can make the difference in how impactful and good your painting will be.

The Importance of Choosing the Right Paint

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As already mentioned, these colourful pallets of painting art sets are crucial as they directly impact the final result. Said in simple words, they directly impact the aesthetic appeal and durability of a certain artwork or project. In the end, you put a lot of effort into every painting of yours, so choosing a paint that is made with quality, durable and long-lasting paints is paramount. All of them should be chosen with one goal in mind, to stand the test of time.

Essential Types of Paint

Speaking of painting sets, nowadays, you can choose from a selection of paints, all of which come with their pros and cons.

Acrylic

Acrylic paints are certainly one of the most commonly used ones on the market. They are the first choice by both beginners and professionals because of their versatility and amazing appearance. According to artists, aside from being versatile, these paints are also great for fine brushwork, staining, glazing, and many other things as well.
Acrylic paints are super smooth and pigmented, and they also tend to dry pretty fast, which is just another reason for their popularity among artists of different skills. According to experts, these paints allow for being applied to a selection of surfaces, which is just one of the many reasons for their popularity. These quick-drying paints can be purchased in a variety of forms, and one of the most commonly used ones is the ones in tubes and a small ink-bottle. Consequently, they can also come in different viscosities, making it easier for you to find the one that will best meet your needs.

An important fact you should know about these paints is that they are water-based, meaning that you can use a bit of water to thin down the paint.

Oil

Just like the acrylic ones, these are also extremely durable and long-lasting, giving a glossy-looking finish. Being oil-based means that these paints are super smooth, but unlike acrylic, they tend to dry slower which doesn't make them the most common choice for beginners. However, on the other hand, they are the perfect choice for professionals as they usually want to develop the painting gradually, making changes to their artwork.

For those times when you want to thin the paint, you can easily use a thinner. You can also choose from the selection of water-mixable oil paints, which are basically oil paints with an added emulsifier, adding to their elasticity. These paints allow for being thinned with water, which makes them easier to use by beginners as well.

Watercolour

Watercolour is just another popular type of colour. They are quite popular for their translucent paint, and they contain pigment and a binder that has the purpose of holding the paint together. On the other hand, this binder also ensures that the paint does not flake, which is of vital importance, especially for the little future-to-be artists. 
According to artists, this paint brushes with fluidity and transparency, and can dry out super quickly. Even though they are light, still, you can lighten/thin the colour even more by simply adding water. Keep in mind that these colours are super thin and light, so once applied to the paper, the paper itself will also affect their colour.

Gouache

While this type of paint is water-soluble just like water colours, the paint is also an opaque paint, which means that the white of the paper surface won't show through.
When compared to watercolours, the gouache colours seem to be a bit chalkier than the traditional watercolours. So, even when diluted/thinned with water, they seem more pigmented than watercolours. Another great difference is that they seem to absorb light rather than reflect it. This paint also seems to dry darker, making it a good choice for those who hate the lightness of watercolours but would love to work with similar but more pigmented colours. When compared to watercolours, the gouache paints seem to dry longer and more slowly, making them easier to work with.