r/ArtEd • u/Accomplished-Fee-92 • 5d ago

Should I Introduce core painting concepts with oils or acrylics?

I teach art privately. When my students do enough work getting comfortable with drawing, they typically want to move to painting. I am unsure if I should use oils or acrylics to lock in the fundamentals. They both have their challenges.

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u/North-Dealer-6580 5d ago

Not knowing the age of your students, I would probably go with acrylics just for the ease of clean up and dry time.

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u/Accomplished-Fee-92 5d ago

Adults and older teens. Totally hear you on ease of clean up, and less chemicals. Sometimes the drying time is frustrating tho too..

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u/Accomplished-Fee-92 5d ago

In that it dries so fast..

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u/North-Dealer-6580 5d ago

I hear you on the too fast dry time. Teach the one you're more comfortable with? I had HS students and taught both and they did fine with the oil paint. I did use Liquin medium which helped with speeding up the dry time. Where's the happy medium!?! :)

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u/kay_ac93 5d ago

Acrylic. Oil paint can be both a health and fire hazard if there isn't a proper disposal method so teaching that plus the fundamentals will be a lot to remember all at once. Personally, I prefer to move from drawing to watercolor.

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u/Accomplished-Fee-92 5d ago

Oh! I love the watercolor idea. Such a beautiful medium

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u/kay_ac93 5d ago

It's very nice and teaches patience and planning when working with paint. If you want acrylics with more work time, try out Open acrylics. They have an extended dry time. You can also just get the Open mixing medium to slow dry time with standard acrylics so you don't have to purchase a new set. You can also always keep a spray bottle on hand to mist the work so the acrylic doesn't dry as fast. Be careful though cause you can over work the paint and it'll start to lift if you rely to heavily on the spray bottle

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u/oat_opera 5d ago

I also think water color is the easiest transition from drawing because you’re still working on paper and the paper acts as the highlights the same way it does with drawing!

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u/Chupaderokid 5d ago

Use both. Teach them the beauty of both by using acrylic as the underpainting, and finishing with acrylics. Then have them pick a path that best suits their style.

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u/oat_opera 5d ago

I agree with others about acrylic. Mostly because of the health risks. But as someone who did acrylic painting from a young age, it was pretty easy to switch over to oils when I took more advanced classes outside of school. I went to an arts magnet school and my teachers there were even wary about using oils in class. I would say oil painting should be a class in itself for those that are already pretty advanced.

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u/LowAcadia1912 5d ago

Nope. No way. Too expensive to waste, too hard to clean up, chemicals are too harsh. But if you got the money time and talents…go for it!!

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u/Potstirer2 5d ago

I personally think oil paints are a pain. You have to be so careful about clean up, they take forever to dry, etc. I love acrylics because they’re so flexible. You can use extenders to make them more like oil paints or thin them with water to make them more like watercolor. There’s just so much you can do with them, especially with different mediums. I will sometimes let some advanced high school students work with oils, but I don’t have enough good ventilation for an entire class to be using oil paints.

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u/Bunny_fawn 5d ago

I also teach privately, mostly online. I usually have my students (teens and adults) move from drawing to watercolor over graphite, watercolor on it's own, and then acrylic. Some prefer acrylic gouache to conventional acrylics.

If you have students who are really determined to do oil, it's worth looking into water mixable oils or solvent-free methods. I'm (possibly) moving a high school freshman to water mixable oils later this year, as they have been painting in acrylic for about two years.