Even if you don’t have much experience in painting, I am confident that you can make art. You can easily Make an Abstract Painting, which is a great place to start…there is no right or wrong…it’s just what YOU like.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson so insightfully proclaimed:

“Every Artist was First An Amateur.”

We recently just moved Kate back to school, which is, of course bittersweet.  I miss her when she’s not here, but she needs to go stretch her wings and do her thing. And since she’s a mere 2.5 hours up the road, we can easily visit when we want to.  

While she and her roommate have all the necessities for their apartment, they hadn’t really contemplated how to decorate the space.  There is A LOT of white wall space that needs a little love.

I suggested they go find some cool poster art, but that suggestion didn’t quite fly. Instead, Kate looked at me with her beautiful brown eyes and asked so sweetly, “Mama…do you think you could….”  To which I replied, ‘of course sweetie’ and just like that, we were planning a piece of ‘art’ for their walls.

I have a penchant for creating art when I see the need to fill a need on my walls.  Over the years, Terry and I have accumulated the art of several artists we admire; however, there has always been a gap in my desire for art for our walls and the funds I have to spend on that art.

It’s that whole ‘buy a painting?’ or ‘feed my kids?’ contemplation. As a way to fill that gap, I began creating my own art.

When we first chatted about what kind of painting she wanted, she asked me to do something similar to the pink and gold watercolor painting I did for the gallery wall in her room earlier this year…just on a bigger scale and with blues instead of pink.

This print is available for purchase at my Society6 shop here:

But when we picked up the mail the day we returned home from moving her in, I spied this painting in the Grandin Road catalog.  

I took a picture, sent it to Kate and received a quick and enthusiastic ‘yes!’ back and so I switched gears.  

This painting appears to be painted in either oils or acrylics and looks to have a bit of texture to it.  I love having a little dimensionality (so, full disclosure, I’m kinda pretending that ‘dimensionality means ‘as in 3-dimension’; however, that’s not the technical definition…but it’s my blog and that’s what it means here! ?) in my paintings and so was excited to go in this direction.

As her apartment has several wall areas that are quite big and quite bare, I went with the ‘bigger bang for the buck’ theory and purchased a 30″ x 40″ canvas at Michael’s.  

Since it needs to be able to be hung with command hooks, it needs to be lightweight. Accordingly, it needs to be thin and won’t be framed. I’ll put some paint on the sides of the canvas to finish it.

What you Need to Make an Abstract Painting:

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• Large Canvas. I think you need a largish canvas for this painting…I used a 30 by 40 inch. 
• Acrylic paint in your desired colors. I used Winsor & Newton Galeria Acrylic in Ultramarine, Liquitex Acyrlic in Ivory Black and Liquitex Acrylic in White
• Gold Leaf Sheets
• Leaf Adhesive Size
• Pallet Knife, Putty Knife, Large 2″ paint brush

Also, if you visit Michaels as much as I do, you can find supplies for most every art project or crafting need under the sun.

Something for texture.  I found an old roll of drywall repair mesh in the garage.  My sweet hubby drives me a little crazy in that he really hates to throw anything away…’you just never know when we’ll need it’.  This is one of those cases where I was glad for his ‘hoarding’ tendency.

 How to Make an Abstract Painting:

• I first placed a couple pieces of the drywall mesh on the canvas. I chose to put mine only where I was going to paint, but I guess there’s no reason why you couldn’t put it where the gold would be.

The only thing to be aware of is that I planned to pull the mesh off so I didn’t adhere it to the canvas.  If you were planning to put the gold leaf over the mesh, you would definitely want to adhere the mesh.

• The ultramarine right out of the tube was a little too bright blue, so I mixed it with about an equal amount of black to get the dark blue.

  

   I painted that dark blue on most of the canvas above where I would put the gold.  I used a putty knife and a palette knife, making it thick in some areas and thinner in other area.

  

• Once the blue was almost dry, I removed the mesh. It pulled right off. Here’s a closeup of the painted mesh.

  

• Once that blue was dry I went in with a blue closer to what comes out of the Ultramarine tube. But this was still way to blue for me. While that was drying, I painted on the gold leaf size as it needs to dry for about a half hour.

  

• After a half hour, I laid on the gold leaf and went back over the brighter blue with my dark black blue. I also laid down a little white

  

• Then I went back in while the paints were just a wee bit wet and moved them around with a dry brush, making the white more subdued. Wipe your brush on a rag or paper towel often to keep it clean.
  

  

• When all the paint was dry, I went back and added a wee bit more gold leaf up in the blue. 

This painting ended up with a moody, brooding feel to it…which is fine.  Almost reminds me of a thunderstorm, with the gold being lightning flashes.

Do you see anything in it? If I wanted to make this less moody, I would add less black to the blue that I originally laid down.

With the acrylics, this painting could be made from start to finish in a couple of hours. If you need to fill up a large wall space, an abstract painting is an easy remedy. There’s no right or wrong, just so it’s pleasing to your eye. I always find it helpful to stand far back from the painting, checking on it several times in different lighting to make sure I like what I see.

I don’t have a great photo of this painting in Kate’s apartment…I sent it up with my parents so haven’t seen it ‘in action’ yet.  But Kate assures me it is helping to fill some blank wall space.

So, do you think you’ll make an abstract painting for your home? If you need a little nudge and some ideas to make an Abstract Painting, pin this for your future reference.

The pink and gold abstract design is available as a phone case, a framed print or canvas or as gift cards at our Society 6 shop – please stop by and see our work – click here to visit!

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