Oil Paintings - What is the difference between acrylics and oil paintings?

Question

I was looking at buying a painting, from http://www.overstockart.com , I noticed that they use oils in their paintings instead of acrylics, what's the difference, between oils and acrylics? What are the other materials that are used for paintings?

Answer 1

Oil paint is better. It can also be layered and layered, which is the method the old masters used (i.e. Rembrandt, Da Vince, etc)
It is, as stated, oil based. You cannot mix water with it.
Acrylic is a new plastic paint. You use water to thin and apply it instead of turpetine and other mediums.
Since you are just looking at a finished product, the medium it is painted with doesnt really matter since you don't have to worry about drying time or production time.

Answer 2

Acrylic is basically plastic. They have come a long way since the beginning. They are easy because they mix with water and are not toxic or flammable. Some artists have managed to make them look and act like oils because of the mediums they add. They are also really good for mixed media - if you want to add collage or even sand or something - and you can use very metallic looking paints as well. The drawback is that they dry quickly and are not as moldable or blendable as oils. Also, some consider the acrylic colors to be abnixiously bright - which may be good for very modern applications, but not if you want a realistic painting with sensitive and subtle color variations. Also, the colors in acrylics can change as they dry.

Answer 3

Kermit is right! If you like the painting buy it! The medium is academic. Oils is oils and acrylics are different as is watercolour. You should look to see if the artist is doing the medium justice. Some artists do not exploit the full potential of the medium - they use the paint to put colour onto the surface and do not build the work on the basis of the medium's characteristics/unique qualities. Even with the same subject, a good watercolour, or oil or acrylic work should be distinctly different.

Answer 4

Generally, beginners use acrylics, experts use oil-paints. Acrylics dry quickly, so that u can overpaint ur creation many times, during one session. Oil-paints don't dry at all during one session. If u're interested in buying paint-works, then I'd suggest u to buy oil-paintings, bcoz it looks richer than acrylics (u know what ...it's due to the fact that oil paint vehicles can hold more pigment than can acrylic emulsions). Most companies that manufacture acrylic paints use less pure grades of pigment when making colors such as cadmium red and cadmium yellow. One company, Winsor & Newton, is now marketing a line of acrylic colors that are made from chemically pure pigments. It uses pure cadmium instead of the cadmium-barium pigment that most other companies use. Now u haven't mentioned what type of artworks u're planning to buy. If it's abstract / perspective then acrylic is good. But if it's portrait or still-life then oil-paints are better.

Answer 5

From my own understanding and experience, oil painting is the old and traditional medium of painting and it takes a while for it to dry hence the term slow-drying paint unless if you apply tempera (egg) technique. And heck, you need to use turpentine and maybe some thinner to dilute it and stuff. As for how it appears, its good when it come to blending, but with a cap H for Hassle and value for money.

And lo and behold, there is acrylic. Acrylic in contrary is a fast-dying paint and it just takes water to dilute it. You can use layers and layers of this paint and still looks fab. Acrylic is like PNG and oil painting is the JPEG of paint.

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