Materials and procedures for painting acrylic (Plexiglass) sheet I would like to paint acrylic sheet (Plexiglass) with acrylic paint.  Both the sheet and the paint are opaque (black or white); single color all over.  


What kinds of paint should I use? What kinds of paint should I avoid?
Are all acrylic paints created equal? My local home improvement store
carries acrylic paint, and they can make a variety of colors on the
spot; would that paint work?
How to prepare surface? Do I need to apply primer first?  If so, what
kind of primer?
What can I use as varnish on top of the paint?


To put this question into perspective, painting is only the 1st stage of the process.  In the 2nd stage, I will burn off the paint with a laser.  So, if I've got black acrylic with white paint, and I ablate the paint selectively, then I will have black details on white background.  (This is not unlike LaserMax sheets.)

I know how to do the laser.  I don't know how to do the paint.
As long as the underlying panel will not flex, yes, you can use normal acrylic paints, but a primer is required, and the recommended method is to fine sand the plexiglass to a slight roughness, then cover with primer.

Acrylic polymer varnish is ideally suited to varnishing over acrylic paint, and I'm pretty certain you can use other varnishes.