OK so I was looking for a picture of a certain painting today and I came across another photograph of an old painting I did a couple of years ago that was one of my favourites, so I thought I would share it (especially after the last post was about one that I wasn’t really that keen on!). I did this textured abstract painting a couple of years ago and it sold pretty quickly after I got a lot of good feedback from friends and family. It was quite a large textured painting on a box canvas:
I used my usual mixture of texture, details of which you can find on this site and used a cake slice to apply it along with a bunch of other tools that I had lying around to make patterns in the texture and I think the proportions of the arrangement of the texture have worked in this case (I try and use the golden ratio to position the various marks and changes in colour and texture and have a great belief that this really works to make the painting properly balanced). I’m sure a lot of you have already studied this but if you haven’t then I would definitely recommend looking into this as it particularly works in abstracts I think.
Another thing I used in this painting was the gold and silver powder that I had picked up in Dubai – you need such a small amount of it that I have enough to last a lifetime! (If you are in the UK and want some to experiment with then I have a few small pots for sale for £5 so comment on this post and I will email you with details if you are interested).
One thing I would recommend to do, particularly if you are trying to recreate a particular style of painting (and you won’t find many artists recommending this!), is to try and copy someone else’s work. I would emphasise not to do this to aim to sell the painting at the end, but just do it as an experiment to see if you can recreate what they have done. Each time I have tried this, I have learned something new about adding either paint or texture when trying to mimic the results that the artist has created in their painting. You can then learn more techniques that you can use in your own work.