Difference Between Oil and Acrylic Paint

Oil Vs Acrylic Paint

Non-painters will usually have a hard time distinguishing between acrylic and oil paints. But there are actually a variety of differences that separate one from the other. The first major difference between oil and acrylic paints is the speed of drying. Oil paints usually dry slower compared to its acrylic counterparts.

With regard to paint make-up, the raw materials used in oil paints include minute particles blended in a mixture of a drying substance, a stabilizer and linseed oil. Acrylic paints are made of a certain pigment combined in a mix of mineral spirits and acrylic resin.

Because of its slow drying nature, oil paints will usually take a longer time to finish. Painters usually wait for several weeks or even a month for it to dry. This is nonetheless advantageous for the painters since they can make oil layered painting effects or do some textured late alterations to the painting. If you make an acrylic paint, you usually finish the entire painting faster because the wet paint dries up faster. Most acrylic paintings dry up in a matter of minutes or the longest would be in an hour.

Oil paints are considered by artists and painters alike as the standard and most traditional painting medium. It is also an older paint medium compared to the more recent acrylic paints. Oil paints were in fact used as early as the 13th century but their popularity have not risen up only until the 15th and 16th centuries. Acrylic paints on the contrary have been available in the market not earlier than the 1950s.

In terms of quality, acrylic paintings were discovered to be less translucent than its oil painting counterpart. Also, cleaning the brushes using oil paints is relatively easier than cleaning the brushes of acrylic paints. The latter dries up quickly, making clean-up hard to do and even troublesome at some point.

Summary :
1.Oil paints are slow drying paints whereas acrylic paints dry fast.
2.Oil paints are made of linseed oil in a suspension whereas acrylic paints are made of an acrylic resin.
3.Paintings using oil paints are finished longer because the painter has to wait for a week or a month for it to completely dry whereas for acrylic paintings the painter need not wait that long.
4.Oil paints have been used for a longer time already compared to the more recently used acrylic paints.
5.Paintings that used oil paints are more translucent than the ones using acrylic paints.
6.Paintbrush clean-up for oil paints is easier compared to brushes that were soaked in acrylic paints.

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