Evolution of a Painting - A peek at my process
Today I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at my painting process in case you're as nosy as I am!
I mostly work with acrylic paints on canvas and paper, though I do also love a bit of watercolour and dabble with mixed media too sometimes.
When I'm starting a painting, I honestly just slap colour on any old how... Sometimes I use a house paint brush, sometimes I scribble all over the surface with markers, crayons or pastels and occasionally I've even used collage to cover the paper up!
This is to fight that (rather clichéd) fear of the blank canvas / page 😆
Once I've got something down, however random, I can relax and know that I can't ruin it anymore than I already have. Yay - freedom!
Then it's just a matter of adding layer after layer (usually involving plenty of flower, leaf or other nature related motifs) until what's in front of me gives me that same feeling I get when I see a beautiful flower or a stunning landscape...
I posted this tongue in cheek description of the evolution of a painting on social media a while back, which actually describes my process pretty well:
10 Steps to Creating an Abstract Painting
Step 1: Weird Mess: Aka, “What even is this?” (Translation: it’s my creative warm-up, obviously)
Step 2: Boring: Every great masterpiece starts with a yawn-worthy stage, right?
Step 3: Still Boring: Adding more layers because something has to happen eventually
Step 4: Ugly: Cue the 'What have I done?!' existential crisis
Step 5: Hmmm: A faint glimmer of hope - finally, something interesting to work with...
Step 6: Garish: When I go overboard trying to make it exciting. Too much? Definitely too much!!!
Step 7: Insipid: Time to tone it down... oops, a bit too much again.
Step 8: Deja Vu: This part looks weirdly familiar - oh wait, I just painted over something very similar!
Step 9: Panic: Oh no, did I completely ruin it? (Spoiler alert: nope, just part of the process...)
Step 10: And Done! The stars align, the colours come together - phew!