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Acrylics VS Oils

Why are oils even Viable anymore? Can you not get the same results much quicker with Acrylics? There are many new products that seem to allow a lot more flexibility in "openess" as well as drying time and blendabilities!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Marta M. Jamróz on August 28, 2011 at 11:31pm

I personally prefer oils because of their vibrant colours and longer time of drying.

Permalink Reply by Lita Villa-Coult on August 29, 2011 at 5:27pm

I believe one would be hard pressed to put them side by side and tell the difference in "Color", I believe the Light Scale would be the same no matter the vehicle! I then suppose the long drying time would be real factor if that is a preference. I am in an opposite frame of mine, constantly waiting for Paint to DRY! :)

Permalink Reply by Manas Roy Roymans on September 14, 2011 at 12:12am

Oil is more malleable to us. This is the beauty of OIl. It is almost impossible to attain that with polymer products. However, depending on tone, the medium is used. There is no conflict which is better and which is not. They are totally two different mediums with their own behaviour.

Roymans

Master Artist- The Netherlands/ India

Roymans Art Studio.

Permalink Reply by Marta M. Jamróz on September 22, 2011 at 9:00am

I like impasts but in acrylic it needs special paste because if you try to paint impasts in acrylics it looks like a plastic or gum mass.

Permalink Reply by Jose "Elmelanius" Garcia on October 7, 2011 at 1:21pm

I thing it's like cooking. In the beginning you may want to eat a potato...it doesn't matter how it's made. But if you're looking for a specific result, you must know if you prefer to boil (acrylic) , to fry (oil) or to wash (watercolour) the potato. Materials have an influence on the result, haven't they?

Permalink Reply by Lita Villa-Coult on October 19, 2011 at 6:44pm

Wow! Quite the analogy there Jose! Very thought provoking! "0

Jose "Elmelanius" Garcia said:

I thing it's like cooking. In the beginning you may want to eat a potato...it doesn't matter how it's made. But if you're looking for a specific result, you must know if you prefer to boil (acrylic) , to fry (oil) or to wash (watercolour) the potato. Materials have an influence on the result, haven't they?

Permalink Reply by Manas Roy Roymans on October 19, 2011 at 7:07pm

Yes indeed. Only thing one must remember that in cooking all the materials are homogeneous. But in painting materials they are heterogeneous. One must be careful which goes on what. Then not only the best result can be achieved but also the stability of the artwork over the years can be achieved.

Roymans

Permalink Reply by Andreja Hojnik Fišić on October 30, 2011 at 4:28pm

There is not the question of better or worse or why oil or acrylic...propensity of the painter,apstract or figurative and personal relationship toward the art..I use both , and intuitively I reach for one or the other..pozdrav Andreja

Permalink Reply by Daniele Mattei on November 6, 2011 at 8:41am

oils are viable bacause they're more natural, brilliant and take more time to dry so you can do better transitions between colors, even mix them on canvas if you want. Many oil colors seems even more natural than acrylics, this is because oils use natural pigments in many cases, while acrylics use also syntetic pigments, to obtain particular tones.
Disadvantage of oils over Acrylics is they can take ages to dry sometimes. Btw dpendong from results you want to obtain and also medium you use in Acrylics you can use both techniques with cool results.

Permalink Reply by Ghazi Aana on November 6, 2011 at 9:14pm

(Oil on canvas - acrylic) for each technical characteristics, and that's why the different aesthetics of each of them.

Permalink Reply by GrubbsArtist on November 11, 2011 at 9:50am

Manas, if we have the opportunity to dine together, I'll do the cooking - the best results for fine food preparation maintains the heterogeneity of the various ingredients, utilizing the advantage of the hint of flavors superimposed from one ingredient to the next, i.e. melted butter and wine sauce on a nice piece of asparagas.

Cooking aside, though I primarily use water based media in my indoor studio, a primary advantage of oil is that it remains animated (i.e. fluid) in depth while the surface skins over, which allows a different type of work where the skin and body of the material can be worked in different ways, i.e. reanimation vs, glazing/washing over. This 'skinning over' of the material in acrylic doesn't last as long, so requires greater speed/energy and/or extenders to acheive similar effects.

A primary advantage of acrylics is that the solvent, water, is non-toxic so it can be diluted in a liberal way and applied in thin washes etc. Ultimately it goes back to the point raised by Manas and others - oil and acrylic are different media that have distinct advantages that can be exploited by the master of each.

Manas Roy Roymans said:

Yes indeed. Only thing one must remember that in cooking all the materials are homogeneous. But in painting materials they are heterogeneous. One must be careful which goes on what. Then not only the best result can be achieved but also the stability of the artwork over the years can be achieved.

Roymans

Permalink Reply by Peter Leighton on December 14, 2011 at 9:26pm

I paint with acrylics, but i'm looking forward to starting using oils. As i paint abstract collages, with acrylics it means many layers are just covered as they've already dried too soon. With oil, ill have the time to build the collage, incorporating these substructures into the whole rather than covering them. More time being the key factor, as the structure is kept open to total transformation.