This post is coming to y’all from Allie Bigoness of Allie Explores!
At the beginning of this year I had a sudden urge to start painting. I had done my fair share of paint and sip classes and found that I was pretty good at it. Next thing I knew, I found a hidden talent and passion with painting as it became something I would do in my free time and would delay my blog posts. It’s sort of become a passion project of mine and I just sold my first painting about a week ago; I’m still pretty excited about that. Sort of unbelievable actually, that for me to start painting at the beginning of this year and to be able to start selling my pieces so soon is pretty impressive, or at least I think so.
Today I wanted to share with you two ways to create simple abstract paintings for your home. I’m a self taught painter and I have found some methods that have resulted in some kickass pieces that are so simple you don’t need to have years of experience. I sure don’t, in fact I thought I was terrible at painting because of my one experience in a high school art class. My teacher told me my painting was awful. He gave us no direction or technique, just sat us in front of a still life and told us to paint. When you have to paint curtains and the shadows of objects with no experience doing so of course it’s not going to turn out great. That’s where my loathing of still life paintings comes from. Both of the paintings today will be a way to create a blended look, my personal favorite technique and style.
What you will need:
- 2 Canvas (any size you prefer, I picked a smaller size to change it up)
- Some paint (any colors you prefer)
- A brush
- Water
- Paper plate or towel (this is to put your paint on)
Blending Tip: When doing both of these paintings, do not wash your brush. You can wash your brush if you plan on banging both of these out in one sitting; otherwise don’t do it. Blending works best when you have a messy brush, as it allows for the two colors to combine easier.
Gradient/Ombre Painting: So many people find blending challenging but I find blending relatively easy which is great because it’s the style I prefer. For this you will need a ton, I repeat A TON of white paint and whatever other color you want to be fading from light to dark.
The first step of this painting will be to paint a white streak down the edge of the canvas, I typically do light to dark from left to right but if you want to do from right to left you can. It doesn’t matter where you start as the process of the gradient will be the same, so change it up if you like. Then you will put your paint brush in mostly white with a little bit of the color of your choice. I chose green and this is illustrated in the photo below.
Then add to your canvas painting up and down right next to the white. This will create a very faint color, mostly white. Then you are going to repeat that step but add a little less white and a little more of whatever color you chose.
Then we are going to continue to do until we are only left with our color. Now if you find you reach this step with a good amount of the canvas left you can add the tiniest amount of black to darken your color. Sometimes with lighter colors will need this step, if you have already started with a deep purple or deep color in general you will most likely not need to darken your color. Easy right? You end up with a beautiful color gradient abstract piece.
Blending tip: Reminder to go up and down, or side to side depending on the direction is going. Just keep it up and you will notice the colors will start to mix, when you see that, keep going until you are satisfied with how it looks. If you are using a different canvas you might want to stand up. I totally do when I do pieces like this on a standard canvas size. In fact it looks like I’m angrily painting because to blend across that length you really need to spread the paint. I tend to put some momentum behind it when standing up to get the results you want. Don’t be afraid to rotate the canvas either, once you get towards the bottom it’s easier to flip it, again don’t be afraid to move the canvas or change up how you paint. Do what feels comfortable to you. You might notice a difference in the way you paint, who knows you might like it better.
Abstract Pattern Painting: So I don’t really have a name for this technique and you are about to see why. I just want to do a disclaimer about how easy these techniques are. This was the first time I approached/tried painting this way and I’m head over heels for this piece. So much so that I’ve decided that I really love painting abstracts; it was so easy and it turned out beautifully.
First, you are going to choose one background color and a few standout colors. I chose light gray as my background color and then four standout colors (magenta, yellow, black, and a weird mix between green and teal). Then I took the background color and painted randomly all over. Basically I was messy and all technique or neatness went out the window. Try and be as messy as possible with your strokes to add some texture. Only leave a little bit of canvas blank where you think you would ideally like to have your stand out colors.
The next step is to add dots/globs of these stand out colors in the blank parts of the canvas illustrated below. Then spread those colors out, it’s okay if they don’t all blend well or easily, I have a trick to help you make them blend like you want.
After you’ve done that, don’t wash your brush, add the background color and paint over the edges of the stand out color. If you want the color to remain a statement and not completely blended, just do this over the edges to keep them soft. Unless you want the colors to remain sharp, you don’t need to do this (I prefer soft blends). If you want the color to be muted, paint the background color over your color, continue to move the paint up and down without adding any more, you will notice that the original stand out color will start to peak through and eventually blend with the background color. Continue to do so until you are happy with your piece and voila! You have a kickass abstract piece for your home.
So there you have it, two awesome abstract pieces where the techniques were simple and you can hang these on your wall to decorate your home. I would love to see if you guys create these yourself! Feel free to tag me on Instagram @allie.explores or on Twitter @abigoness. I can’t wait to see what you guys create!
