‘Abstract Acrylic’ Painting Exercise No. 2 - 'Working from a figure sketch'

This study involved working from a figure sketch and drawing it abstractly in ink; even though I took a life drawing class this wasn’t easy. It also required sand, which I couldn’t find, so I used a sand & modelling paste mixture.
My first attempt didn’t look right because the ink figures weren’t anatomically correct so I started again. The second time wasn’t really successful either, so I cropped the painting and have posted it even though it's not perfect. I enjoyed using the sand mixture and liked the way ink worked with wet paint, but my figures looked funny. It's difficult to get an accurate body shape that is also abstract.

Rolina van Vliet has done it to perfection in her example on pages 52 & 53 of “Abstracts 50 Inspirational Projects”. This is a method I would really like to explore more.

'Abstracts 50 Inspirational Projects’ Study 1 – Expressive Painting Style

Besides doing the exercises in "Vibrant Acrylics" and "Ways to learn Acrylics…" I’m now trying out another book by Rolina Van Vliets. "Abstracts 50 Inspirational Projects" has enough lessons to keep me busy; it’s very similar to her other book "Painting Abstracts ideas, projects and techniques" that I reviewed a while ago. This book has 50 studies, each on a different topic with images to use only as a guide. Rolina says it's better if you don’t have images and simply work out of your own imagination. That however, only works in her classes where she can observe and be there to answer questions. She has included some of the paintings from her students and it makes the book more interesting.

In the first study ‘Expressive painting style’ the work sequence was not for me; I didn’t like making scratch marks. I made a few changes with a putty knife and dripping paint; obsessed over it for a few days then decided the final painting was pretty good.  The assignment was to create a painting that was spontaneous and the stroke directions projected action and variation. I think I achieved that:))

Colour Book Review

Because of illness I couldn’t drive to Alton anymore and wasn’t able to finish my last paint project with Jane @ Ashley-Brian Art.

While trying to finish the painting at home it became obvious that I needed to learn more about colour and mixing paint; hence the next book in my growing library.

‘Colour: a workshop for artists and designers’ by David Hornung is a fantastic book that teaches you about using colour. The book suggests you buy Gouache paint to do the assignments. There are eleven colours in total: cool, warm & earth tone/reds, blues & yellows = (9) + white and dark brown. Jackson Art Supplies  in the UK had the best price and variety of the Turner paints. It probably would have been fine to use acrylic paint, however the book tells you the exact colour names for each brand (5 brands listed). In my limited experience every paint supplier uses different colour names....it's enough to drive you crazy.

Chapter two - First Principles; is about the structure of colour hue, value and saturation. I made four colour wheels and a greyscale with the warm and cool colours.

Chapter four - Beginning Colour Studies; assignments were about using different chroma greys, muted colours, prismatic colours and combined saturation in a small painting. Don't worry the book explains it all and provides a hue/saturation colour wheel.

After completing the assignments I got lazy and just read the rest of the book. There are plenty of exercises so a more disciplined person would really enjoy it. ‘Colour: a workshop for artists and designers’ is an excellent colour theory reference guide and while writing this blog I am tempted to read it again and do ALL the assignments.