I have a gift certificate for Michaels arts and crafts and I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations on acrylic paints that they purchased there?
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Pretty sure Michaels carries Liquitex and W&N. Either is fine.
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Thank you! That’s super helpful. Unfortunately Denver doesn’t have an Utrecht.
Pretty sure Dick Blick bought or merged with Utrecht.
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Blick and Utrecht merged, and Utrecht stores became Blick. I mostly order online, which has the biggest selection. But once in awhile, I need to visit a store and see the actual physical products.
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Connie so funny you should say this. I also mostly order online from Blick. Despite being in a large Metropolitan area, I have no large art store nearby since our main art store closed last year.
But sometimes you do need to see the physical product, so last week I took the 45 minute drive to my nearest Blick in New Jersey. So glad I did. I wanted to try our some different art surfaces and there’s no substitute for seeing and touching products like that.
I even wrote to Blick to suggest that there is a big gap in the market for a Blick Store in my area.
So far, no response. 
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In California our Michaels stores carry Golden and Liquitex, both excellent brands. Stay away from their house brand, Artist’s Loft (very poor quality.) Also the Liquitex “Basics” line is student grade. I’d stick with their professional series.
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We were fortunate to have a Utrecht store become a Blick store in Sacramento. There’s no substitute for touching surfaces and brushes and seeing all those lovely paints and other goodies you never knew you needed.
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Same here. Large metro area (Denver) and no Block or Utrecht or really much of anything. I went to a locally owned store and I wanted to support it and did buy something but very expensive and a tiny selection!
There is a Michaels near me and I use their 50% off coupon to buy a tube of liquitex white every couple of weeks!
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The sell Golden acrylics…they’re just about the best.
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Good strategy! I’ve been holding off since there is a big sale tomorrow 
Do you think Golden is the best value? Do you find it better than liquidtex if you’ve tried both?
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I have used both and found both to be excellent…however, I do not know how each will hold up over the years.
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It’s plastic. It will outlive the planet.
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Artist’s Loft are inexpensive and good quality
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Golden paints are highly pigmented, so it takes less to achieve the colors you want to mix…maybe that makes them better value than generic brands that have a lot of fillers and less of the good stuff (such as Cadmium, for instance, very expensive, cadmium…anything that states it is a “hue” does not contain the true pigment. I am not a scientist, but, I think, over time, that any acrylic that is low in actual pigment will fade out or maybe yellow if it contains a lot of white. I do buy Golden paints from Michaels, but, I try to use a coupon to keep the cost down. Liquitex is also pretty good, but I have stopped buying Windsor and Newtons Galleria line because they dropped in quality and became too sloppy for my liking after they started being made in China.
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I was wondering about the Galleria line, the price was the same as artist loft so figured the quality must be similar.
I probably should be practicing with better paint but feel like it would be a waste this early on in my limited skill set
Vanessa - I hear you! and I did just that for several years, but, here’s the thing - the more expensive paints, especially the ones with pure pigment, tend to be easier to mix and obtain colors that are not ‘muddy’ and more often, accurate results when working from color recipes and the advice of pro’s and teachers. This is because cheaper paints contain pigments that are mixtures of color and so, when you mix them to make certain colors, they tend to be rather unpredictable in their results…for example, I used to have tons of trouble with the Galleria cad red hue, because I would mix it using a color recipe and my result would be totally different from what it was supposed to be! I am self taught, but the best advice I have ever found on this is from Will Kemp (Will Kemp Art School, look it up online if you are interested…full of great FREE advice!!) He advises, buy the best paint you can afford…so, yes, buy Galleria, if you wish, buy artists loft, but, if you find yourself very frustrated with color mixing - try a few tubes of something more expensive and see if that helps! (Golden paints, using a coupon, are really not too expensive, from Michaels and AC Moore…just buy only when you have a coupon and build up a small collection)
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I think the color problems happen with paints that are made using chemical substitutes (“hues”) rather than the actual pigments. For for example, a cheaper one will be labeled “cadmium red hue” instead of just “cadmium red”, which can be deceptive.
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