How to Blend Using Acrylics
One of the biggest challenges that acrylic painters face is learning how to blend. It often feels like you’re fighting with the drying time of the paints resulting in a stressful, rushed painting experience. Despite all of the techniques that you may have tried, it sometimes feels like nothing is working!! Even after hours of layering paint, it still looks streaky and patchy.
But fear not, because there is a way to blend acrylics that results in a flawless smooth blend every time. And it’s not what you’d imagine…
When we think about blending, usually the first thing that comes to mind is blending wet paint into wet paint. And whilst this works great for lots of types of paint, with acrylics drying in T-minus 2 seconds, it’s nearly impossible!
Which is why I want to introduce you to a technique called ‘dry brushing’.
This is where we’re blending wet paint into other paint that has already dried. You do this by loading up your brush with only a small bit of paint. You then lightly brush this over the area you are blending into. Only some parts of your canvas will pick up the pigment due to the texture, creating a blended effect (please refer to the video at the top for visuals. It makes this far more easy to understand!)
Tip: Old, tattered brushes can be perfect for this technique so don’t throw them out!!
It can help if you mix a transitioning colour that is closer to the colour of the dried paint when dry brushing.
Play around with the amount of pressure you’re putting on your brush, for a soft blend you only need to press down lightly. It’s all about building layers with the dry brushing to create a realistic look, so don’t worry if it’s not perfect the first time, just keep on layering until you're happy!
I’d say this style of blending is probably 80% of what I do and is how you can achieve the perfect soft blends even without oils. And the great thing about dry brushing is that you can build layers with it and it feels like you’re not fighting to keep the acrylics wet. When working in this way, you’re using the quick drying nature of acrylics to your advantage. Build layers to achieve your desired result and don’t stress about your paints drying quickly…because now you know the true secret to blending with acrylics.