oils vs acrylics - differences; similarities

[ashling]

I have painted with both in the past. I am using acrylics now, but I always think about using oils.

[lunatica]

1. I've been using acrylics for decades but

Now that there are water based oils I’m thinking of trying them out.

I loved oils but the solvents really made me sick so I switched to acrylics. There are quite a few things I think are drawbacks about acrylics.

They dry so quickly that you have to paint very fast sometimes, especially if your smearing separate colors without blending them completely like when you want your brushstrokes to be visible. With oils there’s a window of time before the paint dries, so you can come back to it and work with it.

Some colors dry darker than they look when they’re wet. Yellows. They tend to dry darker and look flatter than you intended. When you paint with blended colors this means they dry a different shade which makes it very difficult to match the color again.

I do like the way acrylics can be made to look like watercolors though, which you can’t do with oils.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. I like the texture and depth of oil. The finish of acrylic seems flat and

too matte, and it's hard to do glazes with it. It does have the advantage of drying quickly.

[The Blue Flower]

3. That's my feeling about the difference

I've been painting in oil since the 70s. I think there's a richness of color that acrylics can't match.

[BigmanPigman]

4. I don't like water colors or acrylics.

Oils allow for more working time but you can speed things up with glazes if you want.

[TeamPooka]

5. when you can finally make oil paints do exactly what you want them to do you get a God Complex.