Your choice of medium/media?

[Bartc]

Not to be a snob, but I think you can come real close, but not so's you can't ever tell the difference. You can use the very best acrylics on earth and layer and glaze them with the greatest techniques; you might even think it's an oil painting at first, but upon closer inspection, you'll inevitably see that acrylic is never like oil paint. And we still don't know how long it lasts. Only time will tell us. However, it seems, IMO, the color dies a little over time, while good oil paint seems to stay alive for (at least) decades, if not a century+...just needs a little gentle cleaning here and there.

A little "cheat" trick is to build layers with acrylic and glaze over the remaining layers with good, expensive oils. I've done that, but I don't know how long those pieces will last either. They look pretty good (not the actual paintings; I'm talking about the glow of the colors).

Let me say first off that I don't believe any medium is "better", just different and preferable variably for different effects by different artists. So please don't think I'm seeking an argument below.

While you may tell the difference, very few people seem to be able to do so with a highly skilled acrylic painter with the right media and techniques, IME. I suspect that's more likely what you experience, a difference in handling more than the medium's inherent properties. But imitating oil isn't the main goal anyway, as St. Lukes posited, so it's a moot point. Most acrylic painters aren't trying to imitate oils, only some are bothering with mediums (or the two brands that stay or can reopen) to get more drying time or blending as they might with oils. Whatever floats your boat.

I never liked that slow drying aspect of oils and prefer the quicker drying media, and Chroma Atelier Interactive Acrylics plus Liquitex Blending Medium both worked well for me when I wanted more oil qualities in handling. Beyond that, it's up to your taste.

However, I haven't personally heard anyone complain about the toxic aspects and smells of acrylics, nor have I heard or read that anyone has had the allergic reaction over time that some do with oils. That is a very real consideration. Quite a few postings with both those complaints here.

The pigments/dyes used in acrylics are often the very same ones used in oils, watercolors, gouache, etc. anyway, so when folks tell me they expect acrylics not to endure, that just makes no sense to me. Oils do oxidize and also fade with time, and most often they crack and the varnishes yellow badly too, plus they appear to accumulate airborne contaminants in a way that acrylics can just brush off. And consider that watercolors and gouache don't dry the same as they go on wet either, so acrylics are not a "bad boy". Watch the videos by the best conservators (who might also revere oils by tradition) and you'll see the evidence that oils are not the greatest in this regard.

Ironically, so many people believe that oils are the original gold standard medium. Not so historically! Cave paintings may well have started in water, according to the research I've read. Paintings prior to around 1500 in Europe are primarily egg tempera, not oil. Inks and watercolors have done well all over the world for thousands of years. Wax and fresco paintings have been around for millennia and are quite durable and beautiful; oils really only 500 years by comparison. So while acrylics may be the freshman of media, oils are still only the sophomores.

Again, it's personal taste to my thinking. Nothing wrong with oils for those that like them. Nothing in them that I'm personally convinced makes them any more valuable or durable, however.

I'm not arguing that acrylics are "better" than oil at all. Just different and not to be easily dismissed. Personally I do get tired of the worship attended to oils, when so many artists work well in so many other media. Look at the fabulous work posted here that is done in many media besides oil, for example.

 

[john]

So please don't think I'm seeking an argument below.

Oh man, I came here for an argument.

 

[Artyczar]

Let me say first off that I don't believe any medium is "better", just different and preferable variably for different effects by different artists. So please don't think I'm seeking an argument below.

While you may tell the difference, very few people seem to be able to do so with a highly skilled acrylic painter with the right media and techniques, IME. I suspect that's more likely what you experience, a difference in handling more than the medium's inherent properties. But imitating oil isn't the main goal anyway, as St. Lukes posited, so it's a moot point. Most acrylic painters aren't trying to imitate oils, only some are bothering with mediums (or the two brands that stay or can reopen) to get more drying time or blending as they might with oils. Whatever floats your boat.

Well, for the record, I was only responding to your comment: "you can get pretty much the same effect with any style you want in acrylics as with oils." I wasn't saying anything about oils being any better than acrylic, nor was I trying to argue. It was my opinion that you can tell the difference if one is trying for the same effects. No one disagrees that oil are toxic. Personally, I don't mind.

 

[Bartc]

Well, for the record, I was only responding to your comment: "you can get pretty much the same effect with any style you want in acrylics as with oils." I wasn't saying anything about oils being any better than acrylic, nor was I trying to argue. It was my opinion that you can tell the difference if one is trying for the same effects. No one disagrees that oil are toxic. Personally, I don't mind.

Ayin, my comments about oil's reputation weren't related to you specifically at all. Just a general observation about attitudes I see in the market, among consumers and creators of art. And one of my polite rambles about a pet peeve.

They do reflect my feeling that acrylics get panned too easily by oil painters, who haven't invested the time to learn the range of tweaks to that medium because it truly does behave markedly differently. I've seen time and again that oil painters get immediately flustered when the acrylics dry quickly and often simply dismiss them. And I can understand that from knowing the habits they learned in oil. Were they first versed in acrylics they likely would have the reverse first impressions.

In my experience, most folks including artists can't easily distinguish acrylics from oil when a skilled acrylic painter is deliberately using the medium to imitate oil. Not in the finished product, but certainly when handling them, where the differences are huge.

Similarly, watercolors have the reputation for being among the most difficult media because it isn't easy (sometimes impossible) to correct unintended errors. But in the hands of skilled watercolorists that's not the case and they often welcome happy accidents.

I have to squelch my smile when I see folks who were trained and are most comfortable in oils working for the first time with acrylics. They may freak out when they can't spend all that time mixing a set of the "perfect" colors before committing a brush to a canvas as they were likely taught. Conversely many of my plein air compatriots do fine with oils in varying and inhospitable outdoor conditions because they have learned the skills to paint with oils more rapidly.

So to my thinking it's not so much the medium, rather the skill and comfort and familiarity one feels with any medium. That's what this post is about, isn't it? Personal preference.

You can get an incredible range of effects that can mimic oils, watercolors, gouache and more using acrylics. In fact, almost as much range with water soluble wax paints too. It ain't the meat it's the motion.... ;=) Your mileage may vary, of course.

 

[stlukesguild]

Unfortunately, there is a bias by dealers and buyers alike against media other than oil paints... specifically oils on canvas/linen/panel. This is true in spite of the fact that watercolors, pastels, acrylics, etc... may be just as good and just as "permanent" if properly cared for. Historically, oils became the dominant medium in Europe beginning in the late 1400s. It had some real advantages over the other primary media of the time. Egg Tempera was (and remains) an incredibly time-consuming media applied in tiny, thin layers that are cross hatched. The final product was very fragile and so needed to be done on panels of wood (prior to plywood) that needed to be cross-bracketed on the back. The final results were quite heavy. Fresco was applied to wet plaster which limited the time one had to work on a painting, and the end result remained permanently installed on site.

OIls began to gain popularity in Northern Europe where they were applied on primed wood panels... not unlike egg tempera. A good many early oil paintings began with tempera underpaintings. The blending ability of the media and the potential for applying the paint in transparent glazes resulted in the possibility for a degree of illusionism not before seen.

When the painters of Italy discovered oils, they embraced the same elements of the media as the Northern (Netherlandish) painters. It was Venice, however, where the media truly took off. Venice was a city that had grown increasingly wealthy and wished to assert their rightful place culturally. The humidity and frequent flooding of the city made it next to impossible to create large frescos to rival Florence and Rome. Creating huge paintings with egg tempera would have been impossibly time-consuming... and the panels would have weighed far too much. I've read it suggested that thinking about the painted images/symbols on the Venetian sails and flags on the ships may have sparked the initial idea of painting on canvas. Neither egg tempera nor fresco would survive on canvas under most circumstances... although a few egg tempera paintings on canvas are known. Oil paint, on the other hand, holds up on canvas or linen when properly primed and could be produced on epic scales (Tintoretto, Rubens, etc...) that might rival Fresco... and yet might be slowly painted in layers as opposed to limiting the artist to a few days while the plaster remained wet. As the Venetians explored the possibilities of oils over the Renaissance, artists like Titian discovered the possibility of painting more thickly using impasto.

Incredible works of art have been achieved using inks, watercolors, frescos, tempera, etc... but none could match the ability of oil to blend, creating the illusion of form and space through transparent layers, or the variety of applications from glazes to impasto, to ala prima, etc... all on a surface that was light enough to be easily transported. With the dominance of realism from the Renaissance until Modernism, there really was no painting medium that could rival it. Think of how many oil paintings hang in our museums.

Acrylic offered a modern rapidly drying medium that can mimic many of the aspects of oil paints and watercolors. Metal and mineral pigments such as cadmium and lapis lazuli cannot be bound with acrylic... but there are many modern pigments that can be incredibly saturated... even fluorescent... that can be found in acrylic. From what we have seen of the medium, it is likely as permanent as oils... but it does have its limitations. Water can be absorbed by the dried paint causing it to slough off surfaces. If exposed to extreme cold, acrylic paint can shatter. I actually witnessed this in art school.

Personally, I use a mixture of three main media: pastels, acrylics, and gold/metal leaf. I was struck when I first began seriously using pastels with how Degas achieved a surface that recalled weathered fresco to me:

As my pastels evolved, I began employing an underpainting of acrylic. This not only acted as a primer but it also created an underlying color as toned pastel papers do that helped visually unify the image. I soon discovered that I could use acrylic to paint out areas of the painting/pastel that I wished to change. I began to use acrylic in large flat areas that I often sanded creating something of a weathered surface:

I would also sand areas of the gold leaf revealing the reddish-brown underpainting/primer of acrylic that somewhat mimicked the look of weathered gold leaf in older paintings on panel.

I have only turned to oils once with my pastels. I had a painting called "Speak No Evil" that had a large flat red area behind the figure. I tried various layers of acrylic as well as sanding... but could not get what I was after. Finally, I applied a layer of cadmium red oils over it all... and it was just what I was after.

Unfortunately, cadmium red is one of the slower-drying colors of oil. I was unable to work on any of the remaining areas of pastel until the oil paint had completely dried.

Conversely many of my plein air compatriots do fine with oils in varying and inhospitable outdoor conditions because they have learned the skills to paint with oils more rapidly.

Over the years that I spent with oils, I got fairly good at painting in an ala prima manner after first establishing the values in the underpainting. I never really got into painting en plein air however. Landscapes were never my forte. If I wasn't painting the figure, it was still life... sculptural forms. In art school I was required to make one of my only plein air painting... a large (3 1/2 x 8 feet) painting of the lagoon and the trees behind the Cleveland Museum of Art. The painting came out quite well... and honestly, the experience motivated me to working large after a period of quite small paintings. But I can't say I enjoyed it when a swarm of gnats flew onto the canvas and I had no wait until it dried to wipe them all off.

 

[Bongo]

Lots of reasons you might want to use one medium over another - but don't let the mistaken idea that Oils are toxic be the one.
Advances in chemistry - odorless mineral spirits,etc. have made oil paints arguably safer than acrylics.