When it coms to Acrylic painting, I must admit, it’s the only medium that I started with one of the top quality brands. I probably have my university art professor to thank for that. It was a requirement that we buy Golden Acrylic Paints. I specifically only used the Heavy Body Paints in the past.
The university courses I took were really focused on more realistic painting and trying to paint from references of the masters. I focused a lot on the impressionists. Therefore, a very classic colour palette was used for those paintings.
I remember the first time I tried Acrylic Mediums. I have always loved textures, in both my designs and art, so it was love at first sight!
I have since experimented with a lot more brands and mediums, and from the ones I have tested (obviously I haven’t tested all brands, but I am happy to if any of them want to send me samples to review, wink), Golden and Liquitex are my all time favourite brands for both Acrylic Paints and Acrylic Mediums.
They both have their own unique qualities, viscosities and mediums (check out the Acrylic Markers and Spray Paints by Liquitex). I would highly encourage you to try them for yourself.
If you are on a budget, Golden doesn’t have a student line, but Liquitex does. It’s called Liquitex Basics and while they are less pigmented, I still find them to be amazing quality and I use them for process work and under paintings. They are harder to mix with mediums due to less pigmentation, but you only need a drop to tint a medium so I would just use a Liquid Acrylic colour in those cases. Both brands have beautiful options.