In the world of abstract painting, the journey is often more enlightening than the final piece.
If you’re looking to dive deep into creative exploration, our latest painting exercise is designed to free your artistic spirit and help you uncover what truly inspires you. This exercise isn’t about achieving perfection or creating a polished masterpiece; instead, it’s about embracing the process, experimenting with various techniques, and finding joy in every mark you make.
By exploring a range of media and methods, from paint and pastels to collaging and stamping, you’ll discover new ways to express yourself and deepen your connection with your art.
1. Mark-Making and Scribbling
- Scribble with a Pencil: Create spontaneous lines across the paper, with or without looking.
- Scribble with Water-Soluble Pastels: Draw on wet or dry areas, and blend with water or leave marks as is.
- Scribble with Watercolor Pencils: Create marks with watercolor pencils, then blend with water to soften and spread the color.
- Scribble Some More: Revisit scribbling after adding layers to bring energy back into the work.
2. Applying and Manipulating Paint
- Add Acrylic Paint: Use brushes or knives to apply acrylic paint, experimenting with different brush sizes and pressures (pushing the brush hard or holding it light) for varied marks.
- Thin Down Acrylic Paint: Dilute acrylic paint with water to create transparent layers.
- Spray Water: Add water to the paper to create a base for spreading and blending media.
- Drop Acrylic Ink: Drip ink onto wet surfaces, letting it spread naturally or manipulating it with water.
- Add Contrast with Bold Strokes: Apply bold strokes of contrasting colors using a large brush.
- Create Swooping Lines: Use a rigger brush to create long, flowing lines.
- Apply Paint with a Large Brush: Use a wide, flat brush for broad strokes or to cover large areas quickly.
- Paint with Fingers: Apply paint directly with your fingers for intuitive mark-making and blending.
- Add a Contrasting Color: Introduce a contrasting color towards the end for visual interest.
- Spread White Paint: Use a trowel, large palette knife, or catalyst wedge to cover areas with white and simplify the composition.
3. Blending and Layering
- Apply Gesso: Blend gesso into the paper with a knife, brush, or fingers for texture and layering.
- Blend with Fingers: Smear and blend paint, pastels, or watercolor pencils with your fingers for a tactile experience.
- Experiment with Transparent Areas: Create transparent layers by thinning down paint or using transparent mediums.
- Use Soft Pastels: Apply soft pastels over dry or slightly damp areas to create soft, powdery marks that can be blended or left as is.
- Use Oil Pastels: Create rich, buttery marks with oil pastels that can be layered and blended with other media.
4. Creating Texture
- Make Marks with a Fork: Drag a fork through wet paint to create linear patterns.
- Scrape with a Catalyst Wedge or Palette Knife: Scrape paint across the surface to cover large areas or create fine lines.
- Drag Tools Through Wet Paint: Use brushes, forks, or fingers to drag through wet paint for added texture.
- Collage with Paper: Add layers of paper, fabric, or other materials to create a mixed-media effect. Experiment with different types of glue or mediums to adhere the pieces.
6. Stencils & Stamping
- Use Stencils: Apply paint through a stencil and take ghost prints to add patterns and texture.
- Stamping: Use stamps to add repetitive patterns or textures to your work. Try stamping with ink, paint, or even pressing found objects into wet media.
This expanded list offers even more possibilities for your abstract painting exploration, including collaging, stamping, and the use of various pastels and pencils. Mix and match these techniques to discover what resonates with you the most.
Jeannine’s Playful Path – Jeannine’s sequence is a dance of spontaneity and control, blending fluidity with structure. Jeannine’s approach is about layering, exploring the interaction between wet and dry media, and discovering the joy of creating varied textures and patterns.
- Begin with Water: Spray water and add more with a brush. Drop burnt sienna acrylic ink, making marks that spread in wet areas and remain bold in dry ones. Adjust with more water if you want more bleeding. Make marks with the end of spray bottle pipe (burnt sienna) and spray some paint.
- Scribble & Smudge: Use water-soluble pastels to scribble over the wet ink, blending the lines. Experiment with another color, noticing the variety of marks you can create and how it feels to release energy through these gestures.
- Layer with Paint: Add raw umber acrylic paint with a mid-size flat brush, experimenting with how the paint interacts with the ink. Try a smaller brush for more detailed marks and see what textures emerge when the paint is thinned.
- Add Texture: Drag a fork/silicone brush or back of a brush through the wet paint, creating unique patterns.
- Wet marks: While it’s all wet, scribble with watercolor pencils, graphite stick, black stabillo all to create some random lines. Spray more water for the lines to bleed. Drip some high flow white acrylic on the wet paper.
- Dry.
- Add layers: Scrape light beige acrylic with a catalyst wedge to cover larger areas. Go over some of the previous layers. Try and see what different marks u can make with the wedge.
- White covering – Add pure white paint to cover up the muddy areas. Scrape the paint with a palette knife.
Louise’s Intuitive Exploration – Louise’s sequence leans into intuition, embracing the tactile nature of materials.
Louise’s approach is about intuitive mark-making, embracing the physicality of painting, and letting the process guide you to unexpected discoveries.
- Start with Pencil: Scribble across the squares with a pencil, closing your eyes to feel the motion. Then, blend some areas with gesso using a knife.
- Contrast & Boldness: Introduce contrast with broad strokes of black paint using a large flat brush. Then, switch to a smaller brush for more delicate marks, feeling the difference between bold and fine lines.
- Acrylic Layers: Continue adding layers of acrylic paint, using both brushes and knives.
- Use different tools: Experiment with stencils & ghost prints. Add more pencil scribbling, noticing which tools and techniques resonate with you.
- Play with Fingers: Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty—paint with your fingers, blend colors, and create marks.
- White covering: Finish by covering up any muddy areas with white paint, spreading it with a trowel or palette knife.
- Pops of Color: Add a final touch of contrasting color to create interest and see how it enhances the overall composition.