Can You Paint Oil Over Acrylic House Paint

Shellac can be painted over with either latex or oil based paint.

Can you paint oil over acrylic house paint.

It has been proven to be a very chemically stable paint and thus should hold up well for centuries according to analysis done at the art institute of chicago. Oil based paint is a safe choice when painting over a previous oil finish because it is more forgiving of marginal surface prep so there is less chance for peeling but that doesn t mean you should skip out on surface prep altogether. That s good to know. So if you want to use acrylic house paint don t do the shellac primer.

The conclusion of the scientists was that the paint picasso used had the same chemical composition as the house paint a popular oil based enamel paint in france called ripolin. But do not paint with acrylics over oils. For that take a normal primer oil based if you can get it. Also whether you can paint with oils on paper.

It is a question i receive very often. But with the caution that the acrylic paint shouldn t be too glossy or thick. You can paint over the oil based house paint with the shellac primer. Acrylic paint is basically everything oil based paint isn t.

In order to answer this question thoroughly i have a demonstration. Using water based or acrylic paint when painting over oil based paint is likely to cause peeling or chipping because those formulas don t bond well with the naturally glossy surface of oil based. Acrylic paints may not have the same beauty but that doesn t mean they aren t beautiful. If the surface is not cleaned and primed the oil paint will rarely stick to it.

See more of that here. When repainting an oil based paint area primer is essential because the only type of paint that will truly work on a previously oil paint based surface is another coat of oil paint. What you shouldn t do is to start a painting in oils which dry slowly and then paint on top with acrylics which dry quickly. While this might work for painting the walls in your home i don t recommend using house painting materials for making fine art.

Oil paint will happily adhere to dried acrylic paint. But provided the canvas has been primed to be suitable for both oil paints and acrylics it s fine to start a painting with acrylics and then finish it in oils. Many artists worry about painting with oils over acrylics. They dry quickly don t have a weird smell aren t as harmful and can last much longer.

Then when the shellac primer dries it will accept latex or acrylic paint.