Acrylic paint is one of the best mediums a beginner can start with. It is water-based and easy to clean up, dries quickly so you can layer without long waits, works on canvas, paper, wood, fabric, and card, and forgives mistakes in a way that oils and watercolour simply do not. What it does require, though, is a basic understanding of how the medium behaves — because beginners who dive in without that knowledge often hit the same walls: paint drying too fast to blend, colours going muddy, or results that look flat and lifeless.

This guide covers five core acrylic techniques that will immediately improve your painting: layering (the foundation of almost everything), dry brushing for texture and depth, wet-on-wet blending, impasto for expressive thick paint, and glazing — the most powerful and most overlooked technique in the acrylic painter's toolkit. We have also included a full FAQ covering the questions beginners ask most, from paint consistency and drying times to surface preparation and brush care. Read on, then come and find the full range of acrylic paints and mediums in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Watercolour is one of the most rewarding painting mediums you can learn — and also one of the most confusing to shop for. Walk into an art shop (or...

If you have never used Brusho Crystal Colours before, you are in for a treat. These small pots of highly concentrated dye-based ink powder — made exclusively in Sheffield by Colourcraft — are capable of producing the kind of vivid, blooming washes of colour that take years to achieve with conventional watercolour. A single pinch dissolved in water produces an extraordinary burst of colour, and every "shade" is actually a blend of multiple dye crystals, which means the colour separates and shifts in ways that are endlessly interesting.

In this guide we cover everything you need to know to get started and go further: how to open your pots safely, which surfaces work best, the four core techniques (including the classic sprinkle-on-wet-paper method), and a range of advanced approaches including bleach resist, salt effects, stencilling, wax resist, and mixing Brusho into other mediums like PVA and modelling paste. We have also included answers to the most common questions about Brusho, from lightfastness to paper choice to whether it works on Yupo. Read on, then come and find the full range in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.