Does Acrylic Paint Really Dry Too Fast?

Acrylic is a very forgiving medium. By this, I mean that if you goof up you can just paint over it and start again! Can’t do that with watercolor; at least not unless you are very, very skilled with it. I do love the way a talented watercolorist can bring a painting to life with watercolor, but sadly, I find it much harder to work with than acrylics. I am a kind of create as I go painter, and with watercolor it seems necessary to mutinously plan each step. I like the way oils look also (my mother worked in them) but I can’t use them because of the chemicals and the smell and oils really dry too slowly for someone like me; I end up with mud every time because I am too impatient to wait until my canvas is workable again! Pastels and charcoal don’t stink but I am such a messy painter that I inevitably end up with as much on me as I do on the canvas or paper!
I am an impatient painter and acrylics are wonderful for artists like me. In four or five hours you can add at least four layers of paint without creating mud because each layer will dry and be workable in about a half hour. I will confess that it puzzles me to hear of other artists complaining that acrylics dry too fast to work with. I often have to stop and walk away for that half hour in order to let my painting dry enough to add another layer of paint. If I want to thin my acrylic paint to make it more transparent I just use water. If I want an area I am working on to stay wet a little longer, I spray the canvas with water or wet it with a brush. I don’t use any of the available mediums that are supposed to slow down the speed in which acrylics dry. I have tried them but I didn’t like working with them. I did notice that many artists who received their first artistic training in transparent watercolor seem to put a lot less paint on the canvas than I do, which may account for their acrylics drying faster than they want. I find that acrylic loves to be applied nice and thick. The thicker the paint (the more you start out with on the brush) the easier it is to push it around on the canvas and the longer it will take to dry.