Painting in great DETAIL... ?????

Question:the paintings of the old masters are almost like photos... although they were in oil... i was wondering if i can achieve that kind of detail (not the effect of oil) using acrylic?...

oil drys way too slow for me and way too much maintance... but acrylic drys way too fast to work back into the paint...

ive actually heard its easier to paint in detail with acrylic (is this true?)... but whenever i paint it comes out so crude and unconvincing...

i know this is loaded question but plz help me and try ur best to explain how to paint in detail... 10 points for the best answer... im fairly new to painting but i have read a couple of beginner books on acrylics... i dont want to do abstract and expressionism anymore...

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: the paintings of the old masters are almost like photos... although they were in oil... i was wondering if i can achieve that kind of detail (not the effect of oil) using acrylic?...

oil drys way too slow for me and way too much maintance... but acrylic drys way too fast to work back into the paint...

ive actually heard its easier to paint in detail with acrylic (is this true?)... but whenever i paint it comes out so crude and unconvincing...

i know this is loaded question but plz help me and try ur best to explain how to paint in detail... 10 points for the best answer... im fairly new to painting but i have read a couple of beginner books on acrylics... i dont want to do abstract and expressionism anymore...

as a college student there were a lot of times when i didn't have the money to buy oils, which i prefer using. the problems that i had with acrylic included the drying time but also the obvious plastic look of the acrylic after it dried. To cut down on the plastic look, i used marble dust, which a prof. told me about. its really cheap and comes in a bag just like plaster, a little goes a long way and it doesn't affect your color. also, to add sheen that is like that of oil paint, i mixed in small amounts of clear shellac or varnish or simply did a thinned coat of one of them on the whole painting when it was done. As one of the previous people said, you can use additives (i think it's called retarder but you should ask your art supply store for sure) to slow the drying process so you can mix. i never hung well with the conventional rules of painting, i use oil as a the medium for acrylic sometimes too and i think that looks good as well. it may not stand the test of time though....

for the other part of the question, when i started painting i began with trying to paint realistic and ended up with abstractions. the key is to really learn to distinguish color- where it begins and where it ends. this will help you identify your forms and the relationships that the subjects in your painting have with each other. and do tons and tons and tons of paintings. trust me, you'll improve in the area you want to, or you'll find a niche in another direction. i suggest that you first learn how to blend colors. get some of those cards at the paint store that have all the different mixes on them, and try to make them exactly match in the color of your paint, then pick and choose colors to slowly blend into each other. half of art school for me was being pissed off because i thought i was doing all this work that had nothing to do with painting, but it actually refined my skills. you can paint realistically with acrylic, but it is hard to blend at first without making it crude, once you learn to mix colors more quickly and accurately you may find it's easier to do before the paint is dry. Otherwise, try some oil. its not much maintenance in my opinion and you can add something to it to make it dry quicker as stated before.

you can also do what is called under-painting, which a lot of the masters did. there are many different ways to do and it depends on what you want your end result to be and what your subject is. i prefer to do an under-painting (its just a thinned out layer of paint to guide you, like a draft) that uses contrasting colors,, ie, a green object would mean i use a red or light pick as the under-painting. it makes the colors on top more vibrant and alive, more like how oil paint is.

Hi,

I suppose that you're referring to photorealism (although some painters don't like the expression, but that's another subject).
The old master works are not extremelly photorealistic in most cases, but seen from a certain distance they sure look like so.
I've observed some paintings live and the feeling that I got is that they were good on deceiving the viewer i.e. they had a great knowledge how colours appear near others, since as you know the way a colour appears to us, depends upon the surrounding ones.
Now, since you paint, let me remind you something basic : to paint is to learn how to see. Also remember that to compare colours you need to compare the original and the mixed by you on their own and not aside of any other. You know, using two holes on a paper to isolate them.
Well, in what concerns acrylics, I can't help you there becmause I c an't use them, but I've seen some awsome realistic work made with them. As I've seen with any medium.
Anyway, I advise you to visit the Acrylics forum at Wetcanvas.
I'm sure you'll get some good help.

Kind regards,

Joséhttp://theartinquirer.blogspot.com

Painting in acrylics has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are like you mentioned - your work is dry in like 10 minutes, but you don't have all of the mess, toxic fumes, and difficulties of oil.

To me it is harder to obtain realism, especially "photo realism" you are shooting for with acrylics, partly because they just have more of a surface look to them - less depth of pigment - and partly because you really have to paint by layering instead of blending. Oils are much more versatile for photo realism than acrylics.

With acrylics, the trick to photo realism is to work with water in small amounts like you would thinners in oil, work fast while doing a set aside area, and use rich and deep colors so your paintings don't look flat.

Good luck! Photo realism is a real challenge - something I've not been able to master but which I like to try.

Working in acrylics with the goal of photorealism has a drawback you haven't mentioned. Acrylics dry darker than when you apply them, making it hard to match colors. Also blending them is difficult at best. There are additives you can use that will extend the open time, but even with them oils are much better. If you use oils and include a SMALL amount of Liquin painting medium (by Winsor & Newton) they will dry much faster, but still leave you plenty of time for blending. I paint in oils and find that the answer for me is to have two or three paintings working at once. While one is drying I'll be working on one of the others. Works for me.