Glossary Of Acrylic Painting Terms

Look, I know glossaries have been done to death. Everyone and their dog has written one. But I'm in the art business, so here we are—playing the SEO game.

The difference? I'm not just gonna bore you with textbook definitions. Before we dive into the standard acrylic terms, here's my real glossary—the stuff that actually happens in my garage studio.

Garage Studio Artist Acrylic Terms

Dumpster Dive Cardboard – I'm out of shipping boxes and need to ship on the fly. You know the drill—hit the dumpster behind the grocery store.

4:30 Grind – Up early to fix my crappy website or knock out some work before the world wakes up.

Reject Pile of Gold – That stack of "failed" watercolor paintings that end up being awesome collage or mixed media pieces.

Cricket Silence – The only music you need at 5 AM in the garage.

Sparkles – The stuff I don't plan. If you get a nice sparkle, it's luck, not design.

"Finished" Art is a Trap – Don't obsess over polish. Keep it real, keep it loose. Your best work comes from exploring, not perfecting.

Paint Slinger – When half your pigment ends up on the floor instead of the canvas.

Constructive Deconstruct – Build the fundamentals first, then tear them apart later.

Kitchen Sink Challenge – Using everything within reach—pipe, branch, sledgehammer, motor oil—whatever it takes to create art.

Oscillating Fan – The only air conditioning I need in the garage.

The Red Toolbox – An excellent surface for drying watercolors and acrylics.

The Standard Acrylic Painting Terms

Alright, here are the more common techniques and jargon you probably came here for.

Artist – That's you.

Atelier – An artist-run studio school where students study the style and techniques of one artist. French for "workshop," pronounced atel-yay.

Artist Quality – The best quality (and highest priced) paints you can buy. They have a higher pigment load compared to student quality paints.

Acrylic Gesso – A modern alternative to traditional oil gesso. It's a combo of chalk (calcium carbonate) and acrylic polymer. Most pre-stretched canvases from the art store already have a few layers applied.

Binder – The substance that holds dry pigment together. For acrylics, that's acrylic polymer.

Blending – A gradual transition between two colors, usually created when both are wet. Once one dries, smooth blending becomes nearly impossible—a common acrylic struggle.

Big Picture – Observing your painting as a whole. Step back and see how everything works together.

Blocking In – Establishing the basics of a painting by laying down general colors or tones. Much of this gets painted over later, but it helps your eyes judge colors better.

Canvas – Broadly split into two types: cotton and linen.

• Cotton duck canvas is the most common and suitable for acrylics. It's affordable and available in large rolls. The downside? It absorbs water and can stretch or shrink with humidity changes.
• Linen is more resilient to humidity and longer-lasting, which is why portrait painters love it. It's also more expensive.

Canvas Tooth – The coarseness of the canvas weave. That jagged surface helps pull paint from your brush onto the canvas.

Canvas Weight – How thick the canvas is, usually labeled in ounces (8oz, 10oz, 12oz). Heavier weight is better for large paintings to avoid ripping when stretching.

Colored Ground – A solid, opaque color applied to the canvas before you start painting. It helps you judge lights and darks instead of staring at a glaring white canvas.

Consistency – How thick or thin your paint is—basically how it feels on the brush or canvas.

Cool – Can mean two things:

1. The position of a color on the color wheel (blue is cool, red is warm)
2. The coolness of one color compared to another (Alizarin crimson is a cool red compared to Cadmium red)

Curing – When acrylic is drying but not fully dry. OPEN acrylics have a longer curing period than standard acrylics.

Dry Brush – When you have very little moisture on your brush. You scrub the paint on, creating a textured effect called a scumble.

Flat Color – Paint applied in a solid, even color with no variations—like the paint on your living room wall.

Flow Medium – A liquid medium that makes acrylic paint more fluid while maintaining a solid paint film.

Gel – A semi-solid material you mix with acrylics to change texture and consistency. Makes your paint go further too.

Glaze – A thin layer of paint used to optically affect the color underneath. The underlying layer is already dry when you apply the glaze.

Glazing Liquid – A medium that extends the working time and blending qualities of acrylic paint.

Grisaille – Using shades of gray in an underpainting to establish tonal values. Traditionally used in portrait painting before applying colored glazes.

Ground – The surface you're painting on. If you apply white primer to your canvas, it's called a white ground.

Highlight – The lightest areas of a painting. Best applied toward the end once you've modeled the form underneath.

Impasto – Thick application of paint with textured marks still visible. Van Gogh is the king of impasto.

Limited Palette – When you deliberately restrict the number of colors in a painting. Instead of 20 colors, you use 5.

Load – How strong the pigment is, or how much paint you have on your brush.

Medium – Anything you mix with paint to change its consistency. Water is a medium. Glazing liquid is a medium.

Opaque – A pigment that doesn't allow light through. The opposite of transparent.

Palette – The surface you mix colors on—can be wood, glass, or tear-off paper.

Palette Knife – A flexible metal blade used to mix colors. Saves your brushes from quick deterioration.

Pigment – The raw material all paints are made from. Natural or synthetic materials finely ground and mixed with a binder.

Permanence – How permanent paint will be over time. Some pigments are more resilient to light and atmosphere changes.

Retarder – A medium you add to acrylics to extend drying time slightly.

Scumble – A thin application of paint using semi-opaque or opaque pigments, usually applied with a dry brush.

Stretcher Bar – The wooden frames that raw canvas is stretched around.

Support – The surface you paint on—canvas, paper, board, etc.

Tinting Strength – How much or how little paint you need to alter white. Phthalo blue has high tinting strength—a tiny amount goes a long way.

Undertone – How paint appears when applied in a very thin coat.

Vehicle – The liquid part of paint in which dry pigment is dispersed.

Wash – Thin, watery paint diluted with water. Commonly used in blocking-in stages to get an overall sense of the color scheme.

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