Is Craft Paint Really Cheaper? What’s the Best Paint?

Choosing the best paint for your art journal can feel overwhelming. There are so many brands of paint at a variety of price points. Most people will start with craft paint in their journals. But is it the best and least expensive paint for your creative practice? Today we will answer the question, “Is craft paint really cheaper?”

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Understanding the Difference Between Craft Paint and Artist Paints

Craft Paints

Craft paints are inexpensive and are created to meet a price point. These paints are dye based, which means that they have muted color and are not light fast. Craft paints will fade quickly over time. Because they are made with dye, they do not have the intense color like pigment paint does.

Craft paints are also very fast drying, which is great for adding many layers. But it doesn’t provide a lot of working time for color mixing.

Because this is an inexpensive paint, the dyes will be more muted than the artist acrylic paints. This means that you will need to use multiple layers to be able to get good color intensity on your projects.

If you are new to creativity and are on a limited budget, craft paints will work for your creative projects. Especially if you are creating in an art journal, which is generally not being exposed to sun, they are a good choice. Especially if you don’t want to spend too much money on paint.

Comparison between artist and craft paints

Artist Paints

With artist paints, these are quality paints that are made with good materials. Professional artists paints and quality artist student paints are made with pigments instead of dyes. The pigment in these paints make them light stable, so they don’t fade quickly.

Brands such as Golden Acrylics test their paints based off a 75-year life. Each bottle includes lightfastness ratings so that you know how much light each paint can be exposed to once applied.

Artist paints have a very vivid color, blend with other colors beautifully and can be thinned to make intense color washes. Because of the quality of the materials in the paint, they give you more working time for color mixing and won’t dry out immediately.

Choosing the Best Acrylic Paint for Your Artistic Practice

There are several questions to ask yourself as you’re choosing the right paint for your artistic practice.

What are you using it for?
Are you working in a journal that will see very little light?
Are you working on panels or canvases?
Will lightfastness be an issue?
What kind of budget do you have for paint?
Are you blending your paint?
What kind of color intensity are you hoping for?

Depending on the painting techniques you are using will also determine what the best paint is for you.

Are you looking for solid, opaque surfaces for your paint?
Are you adding thin layers of washes onto your project?
Do you want a fast drying or slow drying paint?

How you answer these questions will determine which paint is the best for your creative practice.

Choosing the Best Craft Paint

The Best Inexpensive Craft Paint

When choosing craft paint, there are many brands out there to choose from. I still have craft paints in my collection that are more than 20 years old. The brands that I can recommend are Deco Art and Apple Barrel. They are inexpensive and will work well for basic painting.

Designer Craft Paint

But many of the companies are coming out with designer craft paint, such as Ranger with Dylusions, Dina Wakley and Tim Holtz distress paints. You can also get brands of paint from PaperArtsy, Sizzix and a variety of other scrapbooking companies.

Some of these paints are made with pigments and some are made with dyes. Through my research, it was difficult to determine whether the Ranger Tim Holtz Distress, Sizzix or Dylusions paints are dye or pigment based. The Dina Wakley and PaperArtsy Fresco paints are made with pigment, but this is unusual for a craft paint.

The scrapbook companies that make paint charge a premium for their paints. Each designer has their own line of custom colors, and you will pay a premium for these paints. I have tried many of these paints. But without being able to determine the paint quality, I would recommend using a student grade artist acrylic. They are often more affordable than scrapbooking branded acrylic paints and you’re guaranteed to be working with a pigment paint.

Student vs. Professional Artist Acrylic Paints

Choosing the best student artist paint comparing cheep! acrylics, pebeo high viscosity acrylics and amsterdam acrylics

If you are on a budget, I would highly suggest trying a range of student acrylic paints over craft paints. The student artist acrylics are made with pigment, so they are much more lightfast than craft paint.

Their colors are less muted and more vibrant. Most come in a heavy body formulation, which is thicker and less fluid than craft paint. The heavy body formulation is great for covering large surfaces or thinning out to create layers and washes onto your projects.

What I love about the student acrylic is the price point of these paints. You get quality pigment paint made from good materials and you are paying less than what you would for the same quantity of designer craft paint. With the student artist paints being in a heavy body formulation, as your painting skill improves and you move to higher quality paints, you will find the consistency similar to the professional artist acrylic paints.

If you like gelli printing or painting on boards or canvas, using student artists paints can make a huge difference in how many projects and paintings you can afford to do. I tend to use paint on so many of my projects, having a quality paint at a reasonable price is important to me.

The student artist acrylics that I recommend are the Pebeo High-Viscosity Acrylics and Amsterdam Acrylic Paints. I use both extensively in my projects and for gelli printing. They have vibrant color and have good working time. Any student art paint made from a professional artist paint manufacturer like Liquitex or Holbein will also be a quality student paint at a reasonable price.

Professional Extra-Fine Artist Acrylic Paints

The main difference between professional and student acrylic paints are the materials used to make the paint. The professional acrylic paints are made with higher quality pigments and have more pigment in the paint. This gives them more vibrant color which means you generally use less paint.

These extra-fine acrylics work the best for tinting mediums like gel mediums and pastes. The price point of the artist acrylics is generally a reflection of the quality of the pigments. For example, you will notice that with professional acrylic paints every color has a different price point. That is directly related to the cost of the pigment in each individual paint.

I have a range of fine artist acrylic paints from brands such as Golden, Liquitex, Holbein, N. Graham & Co and Pebeo. Each of them has a slightly different consistency and color, but they are all high-quality acrylics.

Comparing Paint Qualities

Is Craft Paint Really Cheaper? A comparison between craft, student and artist acrylics

I did several sample sheets to show you the difference in paint qualities between craft, designer craft paint, student and professional acrylic paints. As you can see from the bottles, each color of red looks similar in depth of color. But as they are applied to the paper, you can see a huge difference in color saturation.

Acrylic samples comparing craft, designer craft, student artist paints and professional artist paints

The craft paint goes on much lighter and is muted in color. The designer craft paint is more intense, but still lighter than both the student artist acrylics and professional acrylics. The professional acrylics will give you the most opaque, deepest color using the least amount of paint.

I also created an example showing blue acrylic paints so that you can see a similar comparison. You can see the difference between the Pebeo turquoise paints, the student grade paint is less intense than the extra-fine artist acrylics. The professional artist paints are brighter, more vibrant, and make beautiful washes without distorting the color.

Is Craft Paint Really Cheaper?

Is craft paint really cheaper? If you are on a tight budget, I would say yes. The most important thing is having materials to create with. But if you are looking to improve your painting skills and concerned about the durability of your projects, I would say no.

The Importance of Color Mixing

If you want to move to more expensive paint, learn how to color mix. Then you don’t need to own every paint color. This means that you can buy less paint, but better-quality paint. From a few tubes of paint, you can mix dozens of colors, which makes purchasing quality paint more economical.

If you choose to use student acrylics, they use the same color names as the professional acrylics. This helps a lot when learning to mix colors. If you choose to move up to professional acrylics, it will be easier to transition as the names and color mixes for all the paints are the same.

Price Comparisons

Craft paints are good for adding color onto a page. But if you want to improve your painting, try using student artist acrylics. When comparing the price of student artist acrylics to designer craft paint, the price is almost identical when you look at the price per ounce. In a lot of cases, the student acrylics are less expensive than designer art paint.

If you are looking at the DecoArt or Apple Barrel craft paints where you are paying $1-$2 a bottle, student acrylics are more expensive. But they aren’t when compared to designer craft paint.

The biggest difference is that student acrylics have pigment where a lot of the craft acrylic paints are dye based and will fade. The question is not only price, but the quality of the paint.

Any Questions?

Is Craft Paint Really Cheaper? Choosing the Best Paint for your Art Journal

How would you answer the question “Is craft paint really cheaper?” What is your favorite paint and what paint do you use in your creative practice? I would love to hear your thoughts on this article! Please leave a comment below as I’d love to start a conversation!

If you are looking for more information about color mixing, check out this article.

If you are looking for more tips about how to paint with acrylic paint, check out this article.

I hope that this gives you the information that you need to make a good decision the next time you purchase paint!