Acrylic painting for beginners: your first supply kit for under £50
One of the most common reasons people put off starting to paint is the assumption that the initial outlay will be enormous. With acrylics, it genuinely does not have to be. You can put together a complete, capable beginner's kit — paints, brushes, and surfaces — for well under £50, and everything we recommend here is available at Craft and Canvas in Hebden Bridge and online at craftandcanvas.co.uk.
This guide tells you exactly what to buy, why, and what to avoid spending money on until you are further along. It is written for complete beginners who want to get started without waste or confusion.
What you actually need to start painting with acrylics
A beginner's acrylic kit has three components: paint, surfaces, and brushes. Everything else — mediums, varnish, palette knives, easels — can wait. Many painters never need most of it. Start with the essentials and add to your kit only when you have a specific reason to.
You will also need a few things you probably already have at home: a jar of water, some kitchen roll, a ceramic plate or an old plastic container to use as a palette, and a bin bag or newspaper to protect your work surface.
The paints
For a beginner, student grade acrylic paint is the right starting point. The pigment load is lower than artist grade, but the paint is very workable, comes in a wide colour range, is forgiving to use, and is priced in a way that lets you experiment freely without worrying about wasting expensive paint.
We stock two excellent student grade ranges at Craft and Canvas.
Daler-Rowney System 3 is one of the most established student acrylic ranges in the UK — reliable, consistent, widely used in art education, and available in a broad colour range. It handles well straight from the tube, thins easily with water, and produces good results across all the core acrylic techniques. At £4.70 per tube it is great value for a dependable student grade paint. An excellent starting point.
Sennelier Abstract is a step above typical student grade in quality and ambiance. Made by the legendary Parisian colour house Sennelier — who have been making artists' materials since 1887 — Abstract acrylics have a notably creamy consistency and a richness of colour that sits closer to professional grade than most student ranges. At £3.95 per tube they are actually more affordable than System 3, while offering a noticeably more vibrant and pleasurable painting experience. They are our top recommendation for beginners who want the best possible start without breaking the budget.
For an absolute beginner, six to eight colours is all you need. Buying more than that before you have learned to mix is a false economy — you will rarely reach for most of them and you will miss out on developing one of the most important skills in painting.
A starter palette that covers everything: Titanium White (buy a larger tube of this — you will use it constantly), a Yellow, a Cadmium Red or Red Hue, an Alizarin Crimson or Quinacridone Magenta, Ultramarine Blue, Prussian Blue or Cerulean, Burnt Sienna, and Ivory Black. From those eight colours you can mix almost any shade you will ever need.
The surfaces
You need something to paint on. For acrylics, the two best options for beginners are canvas board and stretched canvas — both of which we stock at Craft and Canvas.
Seawhite canvas boards start from £1.35 and are the most practical starting surface for a beginner. They are rigid, pre-primed, and come in a range of sizes. Because they are so affordable you can use them freely for practice without feeling that every painting has to be a finished piece. A handful of boards in A4 or A3 size gives you plenty to work on while you develop your technique.
Seawhite stretched canvases start from £3.25 and are the more traditional option — pre-primed cotton canvas stretched over a wooden frame. They are light to work on and give a pleasant spring under the brush. For a beginner, a couple of small stretched canvases alongside a supply of canvas boards is a good practical combination — use the boards for practice and the canvas for pieces you want to keep.
One thing that surprises many beginners: you can also paint acrylics on thick paper. Mixed media paper or watercolour paper at 300gsm handles acrylics well for thin washes and experimental work, and is considerably cheaper than canvas if you want to paint regularly without the cost of new surfaces every session.
The brushes
For brushes, you want synthetic bristles designed for acrylics — they handle the paint well, last longer than natural hair under the alkaline acrylic formula, and are considerably less expensive than sable.
We stock the Pro Arte Scholacryl set — a wallet of brushes developed specifically for acrylic painting, from £7.50. This is our straightforward recommendation for any beginner starting with acrylics. The Scholacryl uses Pro Arte's Acrylix synthetic bristle, which has excellent spring and responsiveness, and the set covers the shapes you need to get started: rounds for detail and general painting, and flats for coverage and edges.
The Pro Arte Masterstroke set at £9.95 is a versatile mixed set that works across all media — acrylics, watercolour, and general use — and is a good option if you want one set that covers everything.
For most beginners, five to six brushes is plenty: two rounds (a small and a medium), a medium flat, a filbert, and a larger flat or wash brush for covering backgrounds.
A complete beginner's kit for under £50
Here are two practical kits built entirely from our stock at Craft and Canvas.
Option 1 — Sennelier Abstract starter kit (around £40)
Sennelier Abstract is both the better quality paint and the more affordable option, which makes it an easy first recommendation.
- Sennelier Abstract acrylics — 8 tubes at £3.95 each — £31.60
- Pro Arte Scholacryl brush set — from £7.50
- Three Seawhite canvas boards — from £4.05
Total: approximately £43
This gives you a full eight-colour working palette, a complete brush set, and three surfaces to start painting on immediately — with change to spare.
Option 2 — Daler-Rowney System 3 starter kit (around £45)
- Daler-Rowney System 3 acrylics — 6 tubes at £4.70 each — £28.20
- Pro Arte Scholacryl brush set — from £7.50
- Three Seawhite canvas boards — from £4.05
- One Seawhite stretched canvas 30x40cm — from £3.25
Total: approximately £43–45
Six colours is a perfectly workable starting palette with System 3 — the slightly higher price per tube means eight colours would push closer to £50, so starting with six and adding colours as you identify what you need is a sensible approach.
Both kits come in comfortably under £50. Add a ceramic plate from your kitchen as a palette and a jam jar of water and you have everything you need to begin.
What you do not need yet
A few things beginners commonly buy and rarely need at the start:
An easel. For small and medium work, painting flat on a table or propped against a wall is perfectly adequate. An easel is useful once you are painting larger or want the freedom to work standing up — but it is not necessary for a first kit.
Gesso. Pre-primed canvas boards and stretched canvases are ready to use straight from the pack. Gesso is for when you want to prime your own surfaces — not a beginner priority.
Lots of mediums. Retarder, gloss medium, impasto gel — all useful in time, but not essential until you have developed your practice enough to know specifically what you want from them.
A large palette. An old ceramic plate or the lid of a food container works perfectly well for mixing acrylics. Invest in a proper stay-wet palette once you know you are going to paint regularly — it keeps your colours moist between sessions and reduces waste significantly.
More than eight colours. The temptation to buy a large set is understandable, but restraint here will make you a better painter faster. A limited palette forces you to mix, and mixing teaches you colour in a way that reaching for a pre-mixed tube never will.
When to upgrade
The natural progression from a beginner kit is to move toward better quality paint once you have a sense of how you paint and what you want from the medium. Wallace Seymour acrylics — which we stock in 60ml tubes — represent a significant step up in pigment quality, colour depth, and handling from student grade, and the tubes are a generous size for regular use. Many painters keep a student range for practice and background work and use better quality paint for focal areas and finished pieces.
Similarly, as you develop a sense of which brush shapes and sizes you reach for most, replacing frequently used brushes with individual Pro Arte Bristlene or PAB Florence brushes of higher quality will noticeably improve your results.
Frequently asked questions about starting with acrylics
Is System 3 or Sennelier Abstract better for beginners? Both are excellent — and the fact that Sennelier Abstract is actually slightly less expensive than System 3 at £3.95 versus £4.70 per tube makes it an easy recommendation. Abstract has a richer, creamier consistency and more vibrant colour. System 3 is a reliable workhorse that has been a staple of art education for decades. You cannot go wrong with either.
Can I mix System 3 and Sennelier Abstract on the same palette? Yes — they are both acrylic paints and are fully compatible. You can mix brands freely.
How many canvases should I buy to start? Three to five surfaces is a good starting point — a mix of canvas boards for practice and one or two stretched canvases for pieces you want to keep. Canvas boards are so affordable at Craft and Canvas that buying a small stack and using them freely is a much better approach than carefully rationing expensive surfaces.
Do I need to prime canvas boards before painting? No — Seawhite canvas boards come pre-primed and are ready to use straight from the pack.
How do I stop my paint drying on the palette? Keep a small spray bottle of water nearby and mist your palette regularly. Mix only small amounts at a time to minimise waste, and rinse your brushes immediately when you set them down — dried acrylic in a brush is very difficult to remove.
Is acrylic paint washable from clothing? When wet, yes — rinse immediately under cold water. Once dry, acrylic paint is very difficult to remove from fabric. Wear old clothes or an apron.
Shop at Craft and Canvas
We stock Sennelier Abstract at £3.95 per tube, Daler-Rowney System 3 at £4.70 per tube, and Wallace Seymour acrylics alongside Seawhite canvases and boards, Pro Arte brush sets, and everything else you need to get started — at our Hebden Bridge shop and online at craftandcanvas.co.uk. If you are not sure what to pick, come in and we will help you put together the right kit for your budget.
Craft and Canvas | 3 Carlton Street, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8ER | craftandcanvas.co.uk