Can you water down Acrylic paint and use it as Watercolour?

One of our students Matt sent us this interesting question regarding Acrylic:

Hello Sir,I have been thinking of taking your watercolor course. I have heard that I can thin down acrylics?Could I use this method and if I do would I use watercolor paper?Thank you for your time,Matt

This is a great question Matt and not one that we've had before. I would say that I wouldn't do it personally. This is because watercolour is a flexible medium where acrylic isn't (even if you water it down).Once you put it on the paper it's fixed because it's a resin or a plastic (not entirely sure of the ingredients in acrylic paint). Even watered down wouldn't give you the same effect as watercolour.With Watercolour many times I can remove some of it or mix some of it with another colour. You can't do that with acrylic. Once you put an acrylic color on and it dries then it's going to be permanent. So my advice is I wouldn't do it but if that's all you've got then give it a try!But what I would do (which is what I always suggest) is that you do a little bit of the acrylic work on spare paper without actually doing a project. That way they'll find out whether or not it's good enough.I hope that helps and if anyone out there has achieved this then let us know your experiences in the comments below!Interested in trying watercolour? Click here for our free course!