How do you tell the difference between an oil and an acrylic painting?

Answer 1

Acrylic paint is water based and the brushes can be cleaned with soap and water. 'Oil paint' is oil based and needs turpentine or paint thinner to clean brushes. Both come in tubes and are quite thick. You can use a paintbrush or pallette knife to apply the paint. You can also purchase 'folk art' acrylic paint in bottles, which is quite watery.

ANSWER 2

acrylic is not water based although some may contain some water - acrylic paint uses plastic as a binder and requires a solvent that "melts" the plastic to keep it liquid - when painted on the solvent evaporates leaving the plastic to harden and binding the pigment to the surface - oil paint works exactly the same way but uses non plastic binders that require only oil, usually linseed oil, as a solvent

ANSWER 3

No acrylic is not like oil paint tho some will say it is, acrylic is plastic in paint form, any result you achieve in acrylic paint would look a hundred times better in oil. People use it because it is less smelly and dries much quicker. Answer 2 is very good... :)

Answer 2

well one is oil and the other is an acrylics paint
not always easy especially if the artist is an expert at blending acrylics. Acrylics are more difficult to blend than oils because they dry so fast. Sometimes you can smell the difference especially if the painting is new. Oil paintings smell "oily". Acrylic paintings are odorless.
There is introduction of oil painting here http://www.oil-painting.biz/ and introduction of acrylic painting here http://www.oilpaintingfactory.com/Acrylic-painting-on-canvas.html

Answer 3

This depends on your subject, how long you plan to work on your piece, and how detailed it is, and how well blended you prefer it. For a realistic portrait, oil paints are best because of how well they blend. This gives the skin a very realistic look and there are many examples of this dating back to the Renaissance. Oil paint also takes much longer to dry and can produce more detailed work (based off of my personal experience). Acrylic paint is not as good for realism, but is easier to work with and dries very quickly. This makes blending somewhat difficult but still can be done well. Details are a bit more difficult because of the thickness of the paint and the opacity of it. Some brands have thin versions of color and some brands have colors that are heavily based on other colors. For example, blending and mixing color was very difficult when i used a blue-based black. I tried to make the yellow a bit darker, but it just turned green.

Answer 4

Acrylic paints have the advantage of drying faster and a larger selection of premixed colours. Oil paints have the advantage of drying more slowly, allowing for techniques such as blending. Both mediums are wonderful for artists, depending on what you want.