Hi there, I’m really just curious - while looking at the stats on this website I noticed that oil painting out sell acrylic 2 to 1. So it looks like acrylic paintings have half the appeal of oils. I have seem some fantastic paintings, both oil and acrylic in the real world, and was wondering why the ratio is so great. Is oil seen as platinum and acrylic as silver?
Is it a historical thing, with oil being used to paint early masterpieces, and acrylic being the new kid on the block? Therefore could it be that the perception of oil is better, and there for more desirable?
You will have guessed by now that I paint with acrylics. I have spent the last 3 years, or so, trying to paint in a manner similar to artists that I admire, Carol Marine being one of them. Every single one of them use oil paint. Is this telling me something, that oil is the way to go to achieve great work? Well not really, as a lot of the artists I admire painted between 1890 and 1940 (a rough time scale).
I have a small flat with very limited space, so this is why I chose acrylic (most brands…mostly Golden these days) so you can see why I chose this medium…and the fast drying is appealling (I hated the drying time at first).
As I mentioned, I’m really just curious why oil paintings are out selling acrylic with such an extreme ratio.
On a side note I think my paintings are getting closer to where I want to go as an artist. And I managed to move towards Carol’s style using acrylic.
If your interested you can see one of Carol’s tutorials I followed on my Instagram account…you can get the link at my entry for this months ‘The Low Key Challenge’.
Happy painting…whatever medium you use.
Cheers, Ken