Student Grade Acrylic verses Professional Acrylic Fine Art Paints by Kimbrella Adair

What is the difference between student and professional grade acrylic paints? The answer is the pigments. The ratio of pigments to the vehicle carrier (or acrylic and water). Student grade fine art acrylic paint has less pigments in the acrylic base with more water. Professional fine art acrylic paint is loaded with pigments. Often very inexpensive brands of student grade acrylic paints are mostly acrylic base and water. The better grades of student fine art acrylic paints (including some very good craft paints*) are full of pigments. I recommend staying away from cheaply made fine art paints. Curators, gallery owners, professional fine art painters, appraisers etc. can will notice when the artist uses poor quality paint. Poor quality paint may have a negative effect on the appraisal value of the piece. If a customer is ordering an original painting from an online image and receives the piece painted with poor quality acrylic paints they may return it. You really don’t want the painting returned because of using poor quality acrylic paint. (The customer generally has 30 days to return an item. Return time for purchases may vary from state to state. Ask your local chamber of commerce for more information.)
Professional grade fine art paints are loaded with pigments and you can tell with one swipe of the paint brush. If you are used to working with the student acrylics the professional grade will take some adjustment. Acrylic gel medium will work when you want to tone down the professional fine art acrylic paints to what you are familiar with in the student grade paints.
(See Grinding Pigments in Student Grade Fine Art Acrylic Paints)

*DecoArt makes a fine art line of paint called Traditions that are heavily loaded with pigment. I highly recommend the traditions line of paints for paintings with a lot of fine detail.