How Long Does Acrylic Paint Take to Dry? 30 Brands Drying Time

One of the beauties of acrylics is how fast they dry and how fast we can enjoy the results. I think this is the best thing ever for beginners, boom… and your painting is dried and amazing.

Acrylic paint is fast-drying and a thin acrylic paint layer will dry in 10-30 minutes, while a thick acrylic paint layer can take up to 2 hours to dry to the touch. Acrylic painting will fully cure in about 24 hrs. How long acrylic paint will dry fully depends on the temperature, humidity, paint type, thickness of layers, and some other factors. There are also some slow and fast-drying techniques and mediums.

I suggest you read my post to deeply understand the drying process, and its stages and find out 20 popular brands’ dry times. Also, I share easy and almost free methods to make acrylic dry slower or faster.

In this article we will talk about:

1. How long does acrylic paint take to dry
2. Acrylic paint Dry time by brand (30+ brands included)
3. Why and how acrylics dry
4. Why acrylic paint don’t dry
5. 5 ways to make acrylic paint dry faster
6. 15 ways to make acrylic paint dry slower

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How long does it take for acrylic paint to dry?

Almost all acrylics are fast drying. When we ask about drying time, we should keep in mind that there is a difference between acrylic paint dried to touch and fully cured or dried paint. Dry time, mentioned by brands, probably means “dry to touch”. When we read product sheets we will see a range of drying times for acrylic paint.

It takes artist-grade acrylic paint 10-30 minutes if painted in thin layers. If you’re painting thick layers, using open acrylics, or in an inappropriate environment, it can take acrylic paint up to 1-2 hours to dry.

In general, it takes 10-30 minutes for acrylic paint to touch dry – I will explain below what it means – and about 12-24 hrs to be fully cured. For fast-drying acrylic paint it can take less than 10 minutes, for slow-drying acrylics it can take up to 1h to be dried to touch.

Acrylic paint is water-based. The paint composition defines the main characteristics of the acrylics and the drying time of the paint.

Acrylic paint is made of:

The process of acrylic paint drying is water molecules and some other agents’ evaporation. Binder and pigment stay and stick to each other.

In fact, there are 2 stages of drying acrylic paint:

1. Fast dry stage – we call it dry to touch, it means a soft film has already formed on the top of the paint. This also means for us that water will no longer dilute the paint, but the paint is still sensitive to pressure. Still, it is not a full-dried painting.
2. The second stage is when the whole paint body, even under the thin dried film, will dry. After this, the painting is completely dried or cured. The water evaporates completely during this stage. This is why the thickness of the paint will affect the drying time – all paint should be dried.

The visible difference between stages is almost non-existent. Consider time more than the visual aspect. Some brands will be darker when fully cured.

Tip from Tri-Art Manufacturer: touch the back of the painting support, if it is cold then there is still water left in the paint that needs to evaporate.It means it is still drying. 

After this, acrylic paint starts its aging process. You can see how much water we have in wet paint and how it shrinks over-drying.

But…drying depends on several factors that can easily affect how fast or how slow acrylics dry. Some of them are:

• environment: temperature, humidity, airflow
• the paint quality and brand. There are some special products that dry slower or have options to stay open longer. We assume that students-grade paint dries faster and they are cheap, and artist-grade dries a bit slower. In practice, it is not always the case. But it is true that the quality of the paint will be different.
• the thickness of each layer: thin layer (1mm) will dry faster, thick layers (depending on how thick they are) can dry up to 1-2 hrs.
• what kind of palette do you use
• what kind of surface do you paint on
• if you use other mediums or water
• etc.

We will talk about each of them below.

To be sure you acrylic paint dries as fast or slow as you want, let’s learn how acrylics dry and how to influence the drying process to make it faster or slower.

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Dry time by acrylic paint brand

Almost every paint brand posts on their website the full product sheet for paints and mediums. Usually, that sheet will provide you all the technical information you may need.

I will save your time and give you the full list of dry time by brand in the table below. I also provide links to official manufacturers websites where you can double check all the information or read further materials.

*I will mark N/A if the brand says nothing about dry time and the real testimonials differ. In that case, consider that the dry time is standard – 20-30 min. I’ve contacted brands that didn’t have such info like Plaid (Folk Art, Apple Barrel), Liquitex, Daler Rowney, etc, and they were kind enough to quickly reply.

Drying time of 30+ Acrylic Paints

Brand	Drying time, min	Type of paint
Liquitex Basics	5-10 (thin layer) with retarder 15 min max	student-grade, fast-drying
Liquitex Pro Heavy Body	5-10 (thin layer) with retarder 15 min max	artist-grade, fast-drying
Liquitex Pro Soft Body	5-10 (thin layer) with retarder 15 min max	artist-grade, fast-drying
Lascaux Artist	I assume 20-30 (brand doesn't mention it)	artist-grade
Utrecht	10-20 (thin) up to 3 days (thick)
Winsor & Newton Galeria	10-20 (thin) 60 (thick)	student-grade
Winsor & Newton Professional	20-30 1-2 hours (thick)	artist-grade
Pebeo AcrylColor	5-30	craft paint
Pebeo Pouring Experiences	24 hrs	pouring
Pebeo Studio Acrylics	30-60 min Curing 1-8 days	student-grade
Pebeo Extra Fine Artist Acrylics	30-60 min Curing 1-8 days	artost-grade
Apple Barrel	30 min (porous surface) up to 1.5 hr if pouring cure time up to 2 weeks	craft paint, fast-drying
Folk Art Texture Paint	24 hrs curing 48-72 hrs	craft paint
Folk Art	30 min (porous surface) cure time up to 2 weeks	craft paint
Craft Smart	15 min	craft paint, fast-drying
Blick Studio	15 min	student-grade
Blick Artists	20-30	artist-grade
Golden OPEN Acrylics	Stay wet 30-60 min. Touch dry 24+ h up to 14 days fo fully cured	artist-grade, slow-drying
Golden Heavy Body	Stay wet for less than 5 min. Touch dry for 30 minutes.
Atelier Interactive	as long as you add the Unlocking formula without it 10-15 min	artist-grade, interactive paint with controlled drying
M Graham Acrylic	10-20	artist-grade
Matisse	N/A, assume 20-30 min	artist-grade
Sennelier Extra-Fine Artist Acrilique	10-30 min	artist-grade, fast-drying
Sennelier Abstract Acrylic	30 min	artist-grade, fast-drying
Daler-Rowney	10-20 (thin layer) Curing 12 hrs	fast-drying
Amsterdam Expert Series	30 min	artist-grade, fast-drying
Miameri	N/A, assume 20-30 min	fast-drying
Tri-Art	Thin layers - dry to the touch within a few minutes, thicker - several hours.	student-grade, fast-drying
Crayola	10-30 min	craft paint, fast-drying
Holbein Heavy Body	Has longer working time, but no exact mention I assume it will be still up to 30 min	artist-grade, fast-drying
Arteza	15 min	student-grade, fast-drying
Old Holland	"quick-drying", I assume 10-20 min
Lukas Cryl Terzia	30	student-grade, fast-drying
Lukas Cryl Studio	30-60	artist-grade, fast-drying
Gamblin	30-60
Grumbacher Academy	N/A, assume 20-30 min	student-grade
U.S. Art Supply Artists Acrylic	N/A, assume 20-30 min	student-grade, fast-drying
Castle Art Supplies	10-30	craft paint
Da Vinci Acrylics	N/A, assume 20-30 min	artist-grade, fast-drying
DecoArt Americana	N/A, assume 20-30 min	craft paint, fast-drying
Sargent Art	N/A, assume 20-30 min	craft paint, fast-drying
Mont Marte Acrylic paint	20-30 min	student-grade, fast-drying
Hippie Crafter Acrylic paint	20 min	pouring paint

As you can see, the general dry time is about the same for all acrylic paint brand. I will say it again – the drying time is more sensitive to other factors than how it was made. Sure, some manufacturers try to save our time and efforts and create paint and mediums for every case and technique we may want to use. But, still, the temperature, the amount of water to dilute paint, humidity, type of mediums and surface you choose will play bigger role in drying process.

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Golden Open acrylics dry time

The Golden Open Acrylics paint by Golden Artist Colors is the most slow-drying acrylic paint and stays open (workable) up to 1 hour. It means it will be still wet on the palette and you can continue painting. It happens because this paint already has some retarder in it. I have to mention that Open acrylics can dry slightly lighter and less opaque than Heavy Body or other acrylics. You can try to make them opaque by mixing colors or adding underlying layer of Titanium white or Cobalt Black. With OPEN acrylics you can work with paint and create smooth surface, shape objects, experiment.

Golden Heavy body acrylic dry time

On the other hand, Golden Heavy Body is one of the most fast-drying acrylic paint – it stays wet only 5 minutes. You can also mix the two paint and achieve standard drying time.

Personally, I like Golden brand a lot: they always give extremely full and in-depth recommendations on their website, they have large variety of paint and mediums. The downside is the price, they are more expensive than Liquitex.

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Liquitex basics acrylic paint dry time

Liquitex pretends to be a fast-drying high-quality acrylic paint. It takes 10-12 min to dry to touch if you apply Liquitex acrylic paint in thin layers. Liquitex is one of the biggest manufacturers and of course, they try to make their product range wider, that’s why you can also buy Liquitex Slow-Dri Fluid medium to keep acrylic paint wet and workable in heat. The medium slows down dry time by 40%, which means if normally it was 10-20 min, with a slow-drying medium it will take acrylics 14-28 min to dry to touch. Liquitex mediums are also good not only for slow-drying but for increasing flow, transparency, and viscosity (if you mix it with heavy-body).

Mediums that slow down drying time are also called retarders, extenders, slow-drying mediums.

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Winsor & Newton acrylic paint dry time

Another fast-drying paint brand is Winsor & Newton, they have two grades of paint: Galeria and Artist or professional paint. Winsor & Newton Galeria will dry in 10-20 minutes, while Winsor & Newton
Professional Acrylic needs about 30 minutes to dry to touch. Both will take more time to dry if you like thicker applications.

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M Graham acrylic paint dry time

M Graham High-Solid Acrylic Emulsion contains more solids (60%) and offers up to 1 hour of workable (open) time for artists. They don’t add any other mediums or retarder in paint.

Lascaux seems to dry in 20-30 min. They also provide retarders. In fact, 16 other Lascaux mediums have a slow-drying effect, like paste, retarders, impasto gel, and matte mediums.

Pebeo, Matisse provides information only about mediums.

Some brands don’t mention the exact time the acrylic paint will take to dry. I recommend assuming that it’s close to standard, as the paint composition is quite common and if you don’t see any unknown titles on the paint label, consider waiting 10-30 minutes to dry to touch and up to 24 hrs for fully cured painting.

You can also create your own table of dry time based on your experience and notes, especially if you work in your authentic and unique technique. Just make notes and take photos when you try something new and keep them until your next painting.

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What can affect how long acrylic paint dries?

As I already mentioned there are some important things influencing acrylic paint drying. First of all, we talk about the environment, quality, and choice of surface, paint, and mediums.

“Dry slow” for standard acrylic means to dry to touch slower than 30 minutes. If you worry about it, please, check the full list of factors affecting acrylic paint drying and make your acrylic dry faster or wait a little bit and enjoy the finished painting.

The main factors changing drying time:

• Thickness

The number of layers of paint, the right amount of time between all coats of paint, and the thickness of your paint can affect your good results. You applied thick layers (more than 1 mm) and thick layers dry slower. Some brands say that a thick layer can stay wet for days! A thin layer of acrylic paint will dry faster. For thick application, it is highly recommended to paint in thin layers of acrylic paint. Successive applications rather than applying one thick layer can offer the best results.

The first layer of color usually dries faster.

• Surface

As we know, acrylic paint is good for many different surfaces. If your painting surface is glossy or non-absorbent at all, it means it is hard for paint to adhere to the surface. Make sure you prime your surface and use appropriate supplies – good surface preparation means a lot for good results.

On the contrary, if you use unprimed wood or another absorbent (or unprimed) surface, it will soak all paint quickly and you will need more and more layers.

Unprimed paper is also generally more absorbent than pre-primed canvas. But unprimed canvas will be more absorbent than paper.

• Palettes

you use stay-wet palettes. It can be a homemade wet palette or from a shop. The main goal of these palettes is to keep your paint from drying. Try to choose plastic or glass palettes if you don’t aim to slow your paint drying time.

• Paint brand and quality

you use a brand of paint with a longer open time, such as Golden Open. This paint stays wet for up to 1 hour. Or you use fluid acrylics with a thin application – this will dry faster.

• Slow-dry Medium

using any of these mediums: extenders, retarders, slow-dry medium, wetting spray. They are all made to make acrylics dry slower. Check the properties of the medium you use.

If you need one of these, check my 11 recommended slow-drying mediums.

• Water

you are used to spraying the back of your canvas or paint while working. If so, acrylics are likely to dry slower than usual as much water remains on the surface.

you added too much water to the paint which slows down the evaporation process and damages paint quality. Thinning paint with water is something I don’t recommend: first of all, water dilutes pigment and binder and changes the bonding properties. Second, it slows down drying, because as we remember drying = evaporation.

• Environment

Environmental factors such as temperature changes, humidity level, direct sunlight, air circulation, use of air conditioners, and others impact the dry time of acrylic paint and pour paintings. If you paint in high humidity (50%+), the temperature in your room is below 65F (18C) – and you will slow down the drying of acrylics. You paint in the warm and dry room – you make acrylic paint dry faster as high temperatures make the water evaporate faster.

The air flow can also affect the drying process. Using a fan can help. But do not place the fan or a heater directly in front of the painting. Heat plus increased airflow makes acrylics dry faster.

The ideal environment for acrylic painting:

Temperature: 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit (18 – 24 C).
Humidity level: 40-50%
Well-aired

• After painting

you used to cover your painting with plastic. It will keep moisture and slow down the drying process.

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If you think one or a couple of these factors may have a place, your paint is likely to dry slower. There is nothing wrong with it, just try to avoid it next time if you want quicker results.

There are some methods how to make your paint dry faster if you are not satisfied with the actual drying time. They are very simple and almost free.

I also share 15 methods to make acrylics dry slower below, you can save it for the future 🙂

I hope all your paintings dry as fast as you need!

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How to make acrylic paint dry faster

General guidelines of how to make acrylic dry faster:

1. Apply thin layers
2. Paint in a warm room and dry environment
3. Use a hairdryer or heater
4. Use fast-drying paint
5. Do not use these mediums

Need more information? Check the full post about How to make acrylics dry faster on my blog (it will be open in a new tab, don’t worry).

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How to make acrylic paint dry slower

There are 15 ways to make acrylic paint dry slower. I’ve tried to make a useful post with all the How-to and homemade recipes.

1. Planning and sketching
2. Painting in the right environment: low humidity, cold weather,
3. Painting outdoor
4. Using primed surface
5. Moisturizing the back of the canvas
6. Using wet palette: homemade or buy one
   • 4 recommended wet palettes
   • Homemade wet palettes
7. Using non-absorbent palettes
8. Spraying the palette with water (use an old spray bottle)
9. Spraying the palette with wetting spray
10. Use paint with a longer open time
11. Use artist-grade acrylic paint
12. Use paint retarders
    • How to make homemade acrylic paint retarder
13. Using acrylic glazing liquids
14. Thicker application
15. Using plastic wrap after finishing

The best way to learn more about each method is to read the post 15 Ways to Make Acrylic Paint Dry Slower

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Remember that acrylic paint is fast-drying and some craft paint will dry to touch in as soon as 5 minutes while some professional paint can stay workable for up to hours. Learning how to paint and control the paint is an amazing journey and I hope you’ve learned more today about acrylic paint drying time and how to alter it if needed!