You are excited to start your journey with acrylics. You set up your canvas and load your palette. Eager to break-in your paint brushes, you finally get started on your painting. All is going well when all of a sudden, you notice that your paint is feeling dry and tacky. It’s becoming increasingly harder to blend. Your excitement has morphed into frustration and self doubt. “Maybe I’m not good enough. This isn’t the medium for me” you think.

Don’t worry even the best acrylic artists have found themselves in this predicament. You definitely have what it takes to become a decent artist.

Acrylics are known for their incredibly fast drying time. This can be a blessing when building up layers and a curse when blending colors. Luckily through trial and error, I have discovered some great tricks for extending the drying time of acrylics. Hopefully a few of these tips will help you as well.

Here are 7 ways to make acrylics dry slower and blend smoother.

Acrylic paint dries quickly, which can be a problem for artists who need more time to work on their paintings. By using one or more of these techniques, artists can extend the working time of their acrylic paints and achieve better results in their paintings.

Here are a few of my favorite brands.

I hope these tips help you achieve better results.