I started painting with acrylics in October 2019. A few months earlier, an artist I followed on Youtube had gotten back into non-digital painting. I’d watched videos of people painting before, but for some reason, I was extremely interested this time and thought I’d try out some painting on my own.

I genuinely can’t remember if I had a particular reason for choosing acrylics over gouache or oil paints. I knew acrylics were cheaper and they didn’t need special things like oils did, and I also knew I didn’t like watercolors. I’m pretty sure I had no idea what gouache was at the time, either.

What I initially bought were a set of paintbrushes, a set of 10 small acrylic tubes of paint, and a pad of linen paper (specifically for acrylic paint). You can see my first ten attempts here:

It was not as easy as I thought it would be, especially since I had no previous painting experience. I only started getting the hang of acrylics at the sixth painting – the one with the sunset and the clouds.

After I ran out of linen paper, I tried a couple of paintings on watercolor paper and learned that I don’t like the texture of watercolor paper for acrylic painting. Then I bought some canvas panels and discovered that there’s a reason you use acrylics on canvas and not paper. Canvas genuinely feels a lot better to paint on than paper does.

I’m really glad I thought about trying this out back in 2019. I’ve discovered a new hobby that I really like, and as a result I’ve gained an interest in art that I did not have previously, even though I’ve been drawing for most of my life.