Can You Paint Oil Over Acrylic House Paint

Oil paint will happily adhere to dried acrylic paint.

Can you paint oil over acrylic house paint. Then when the shellac primer dries it will accept latex or acrylic paint. 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. So if you want to use acrylic house paint don t do the shellac primer. It is a question i receive very often.

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. 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. Many artists worry about painting with oils over acrylics. 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.

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. If the surface is not cleaned and primed the oil paint will rarely stick to it. An oil based primer is better for acrylics but they have become hard to get. See more of that here.

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. Also whether you can paint with oils on paper. But do not paint with acrylics over oils. Shellac can be painted over with either latex or oil based paint.

You can paint over the oil based house paint with the shellac primer. 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. But with the caution that the acrylic paint shouldn t be too glossy or thick. Unlike latex paint oil based paint is very finicky about what it adheres to.

Acrylic paint is basically everything oil based paint isn t. In order to answer this question thoroughly i have a demonstration. They dry quickly don t have a weird smell aren t as harmful and can last much longer. While this might work for painting the walls in your home i don t recommend using house painting materials for making fine art.

That s good to know.