Christmas Abstract 2.0

First off, a shout out to all you brave responders! You made my day and Betty gets extra credit for responding twice :)  I am greedy and love the feedback; keep it up, my friends!



Sooooo, yeah. I tried my hand at painting an abstract. You know how you look at abstracts in art galleries and think to yourself, "I could do that!" Welllll, maybe not. At least that's what I think for myself now. It was a little harder than I expected. I mean, there were so many places I could drag the paintbrush. So many colors I could choose. Daunting! Even in my initial decision-making phase, it was just too wide open. I ended up hunting for and finding a picture that gave me some direction and inspiration (see the gallery at the end of the post.) I had already decided to use acrylics instead of my preferred oils, because they dry so much faster. Of course, I am not too well versed at using acrylics, so there was that. 


I was painting over a previous attempt a few years ago of a Christmasy scene, so I already had a colorful underpainting. One of the summer workshops I went to this year was in mixed media, so I tried out one of the techniques we learned there: squashing up and soaking tissue paper in a watery glue and sticking it on the canvas for texture and interest. That was fun…and messy. Once it dried, I went to town putting on layer after layer of color, keeping in mind if the subject is cool (in this case) then the background should be warm, which works well if it's not needing a lot of depth and distance. Also trying to avoid large patches of unbroken color which just wears the eye out.


Anyway…I'm no pro but here's the painting! Lucky for me, I can tweak it again next year if I want to. And, for the record, I have no idea why the tree is listing to the left. Must be my astigmatism. 

I found this inspiration on the internet...

wet tissue paper in vague tree shape applied, followed by pitiful stabs of paint.

getting bolder…braver!

snow added; calling it DONE

and here's what it looks like in the frame on the wall. Merry Christmas, ya'll!