Acrylic is often recommended to beginners because it's forgiving and dries fast, but that same speed is exactly what trips people up once they move past the basics. Here's a working cheat sheet, the kind of thing we wish someone had handed us early on.

Start with a simple, limited palette

Five colors, a warm and cool version of red, yellow and blue, plus white, will teach you more about color mixing than a 24-tube set. Limiting your options forces you to actually understand how colors combine instead of reaching for a pre-mixed tube every time. Once mixing feels intuitive, expand from there.

Layer instead of fighting the dry time

Acrylic's fast drying time is a feature, not a bug, once you stop resisting it. Working in thin layers, letting each one dry before the next, builds depth and richness that a single thick coat never will. If you need more open working time, a flow improver or a little water thins the paint without weakening the pigment too much.

Choose the right surface

Unprimed surfaces will drink paint unevenly and can warp over time. A primed canvas or heavyweight paper built for acrylic makes a bigger difference than most beginners expect, the paint sits differently, blends more predictably, and the finished piece holds up better.

Reference photos are a starting point, not a finish line

Holly Ellsworth-Rose's Songhai began as a reference photograph, but what makes the final painting work is everything she changed: the color palette, the brushwork, the mood. A reference photo is scaffolding. The painting is what you build on top of it.

A few pro tips

• Clean brushes immediately. Dried acrylic is close to permanent.
• A palette knife adds texture a brush can't replicate.
• Varnish only once a painting is fully cured, usually a week or more depending on thickness, to protect it from dust and UV fading.
• Invest in better brushes and paint once you've outgrown student-grade materials; pigment load and longevity both improve noticeably.

Acrylic rewards patience more than talent, most of what looks like skill is really just hours logged with the medium. See where that practice leads in Holly Ellsworth-Rose's full collection.