Walk into any art supply store and you are immediately faced with a wall of both acrylic and oil paints. Both can produce stunning results. Both have been used by masters. So which one should a beginner choose? The answer depends entirely on your lifestyle, budget, and how you like to work.

Acrylics: Fast, Flexible, Forgiving

Acrylic paint is water-based, which means it cleans up with water, dries in minutes to hours, and can be used on almost any surface. This makes it ideal for beginners who want to experiment quickly without committing to expensive materials or long drying waits.

Advantages of Acrylics

  • Dries fast — you can paint over mistakes within minutes
  • Water cleanup — no solvents or turpentine needed
  • Versatile — works on canvas, wood, paper, fabric
  • Less expensive to start
  • Non-toxic (most formulations)

Disadvantages of Acrylics

  • Dries too fast for slow blending techniques
  • Colors shift slightly darker as they dry
  • Can look plastic if applied too thickly without medium

A great starter set like the Arteza 60-color acrylic set gives you everything you need to explore the full color range without breaking the bank.

Oils: Slow, Luminous, Luxurious

Oil paint uses linseed or safflower oil as its binder, giving it a long drying time — from days to weeks. This slow drying is actually a feature, not a bug: it allows you to blend colors on the canvas for extended periods, creating smooth gradients impossible to achieve with fast-drying acrylics.

Advantages of Oils

  • Long working time — blend and rework paint for hours or days
  • Rich, luminous color that does not shift on drying
  • Natural feel and flow that many painters prefer
  • Can be reworked weeks later

Disadvantages of Oils

  • Requires solvents (turpentine, odorless mineral spirits) for cleanup
  • Long drying time requires patience between layers
  • More expensive startup cost
  • Some pigments are toxic

Our Recommendation

Start with acrylics. They are more forgiving, faster to learn from, and cheaper to experiment with. Once you understand color mixing, composition, and brushwork, transitioning to oils is straightforward — and many of those skills transfer directly. Many professional artists use both depending on the project.