How to make an abstract painting - have fun and make your own abstract art
What makes abstract art interesting and desirable such that someone will want to part with their hard-earned money and have it displayed on their walls? I once thought that abstract art was just some pretentious nonsense whereby someone randomly threw paint across a canvas, mixed it up a little, stepped back, and called it art. I also thought artists could get away with this because one often heard people saying that it was for the viewer to decide whether or not they liked it and considered it art. Well, it turns out that there’s actually a lot more to it than that, as I’ve discovered since straying into abstract painting and finding that I love it. But, it isn’t random paint throwing. Here I highlight some of the things an artist, or me at least, needs to think about before creating an abstract painting.
Plan the painting
Before starting, one needs to consider what size of canvas will be used. This might seem obvious but it has a major impact on how the paint is going to be applied, whether a drying retarder will be needed, the size of brushes to use, and how long you’ll need to paint. It will also affect how you paint as very large canvasses may need quick and bold brushstrokes or other techniques to allow the paint to be worked before it begins to dry.
2. Consider Composition
Some abstract paintings may look random and chaotic but most good ones tend to be designed to have a focal point or a way of leading the viewers eye into the painting. With some, the focal point may not be obvious, especially with paintings where very subtle grading has been used but even here the gradient tends to lead the eye. Photographers are well aware of the Rule of Thirds. This is a way of considering an image in three sections to provide balance and is, in fact, routed in nature. For example, a well balanced landscape painting tends to show one third land and two thirds sky or vice versa. Vertically, one often sees trees being included to the left or right third of an image, again to lead the eye. This is also true in abstract paintings where the composition may be designed such that the elements are built around the same idea. Some of my more successful abstract paintings have been those where the Rule of Thirds was employed. Take an image that runs diagonally across the canvas. Here you have a top and bottom section separated by the diagonal feature - three elements and the diagonal leading the viewers eye.
3. Balancing the Blues - Colour Balance
Unless you are incredibly famous and your followers will swallow anything you do without question, you really need to think about colour. Now, this is quite ironic that I'm going to talk about colour when I can barely recognise more than a few, being profoundly colour blind! However, bear with me. Most people are familiar with colour charts or colour wheels, the sort you often see in furniture and upholstery shops. The idea is simple: all colours have a complimentary or contrasting colour associated with it and by combining these you can achieve a colour balance that is pleasing to the eye. Equally, using different shades and hues of the same colour can also provide a balanced image rather than some discordant chaotic mess. Unless ghats what you want, of, course!
I occasionally post my initial progress on a painting and if you’ve seen them you’ll know that I like to lay down my dark colours first and gradually blend in or build up colours that get progressively lighter but also compliment each other. Sometimes this is done across the painting so one part will balance with another.
Top Tip: An artist friend once told me to photograph my painting in black and white and review the image before deciding the colours worked. If the image looks flat and washed out then it suggests there isn’t enough depth of colour or contrast in the painting. Being unable to see colours well I find this tip invaluable and I highly recommend it.
4. Flip your Focus
When painting anything, but especially abstract art, it is always good practice to take a step back for a while and evaluate what you’ve done. Moreover, turn the painting over, 90 degrees and 180 degrees. If the painting looks unbalanced in any one direction it may well be unbalanced in all directions. Even an upside down landscape still holds its balance (rule of thirds, remember!).
What you’re looking for is to ensure all of the elements of your painting work together and not against each other. You’re not looking for exactness or necessarily symmetry but you do want an overall composition that blends together so that you are not mounting a visual assault on your viewers eyeballs!
5. Edge your bets
Easily forgotten but vitally important are the paintings edges. Edges play a role in anchoring your composition and can be used to create striking effects. In fact, some artists use the edges to deliberately strike an imbalance in the painting, which of course forces the viewer into the centre to find the balanced composition. It’s a bit like building a tunnel to draw people in. Edges csn also be used to give the suggestion that there is more of the painting off the canvas. This concept is clever and can leave a viewer pondering what’s out there beyond the edge of the present canvas.
6. Park Precision
One of the fun aspects of abstract art is to ensure that there are a diversity of features to explore on the canvas. When I first started painting abstract art I was obsessed with getting my blending precise and my brush stroke lines all equal and even. This led to some very boring pieces! I’ve since learnt that variety is key and I no longer shy away from letting the painting take twists and turns here and there. If my brush stops dead on the canvas some dramatic, but subtle, marks remain and this adds to the drama on the canvas. If some of the underpainting pulls through the surface this is fine too. When I step back the painting works and when I step closer there are things to be found. It all makes for an interesting painting. Precision is great and sometimes essential but not so in abstract art, at least not mine.
7. Don’t Discard Disasters
Mistakes will happen. It’s just a fact of life and most certainly a fact of creating art. I learnt the hard way that if something goes wrong, at least with abstract work, it can pay to just carry out and go with it. Early on I created a piece that was one of my first attempts at complex blending. The colours were contrasting and really quite offensive on the eye. Worse yet, the centre of the painting drew one in like the centre of a dark and forbidding black hole. I actually felt uneasy looking at it. In trying to salvage something out of the wreckage that was now my artwork I decided to etch the surface with radial lines - it looked like a spider web and only served to make the painting even more creepy.
So what did I do? I ran my largest brush over the lot and wiped it out and etched a large tree into it! The tree sold within a couple of weeks. Great result, right? Not quite. Just because I hated it didn’t mean others would. And others didn’t hate it. In fact, they loved it and wanted to buy it. Awkward, as it no longer existed. Luckily I take high resolution images of everything I do so can at least sell prints and canvases of it but it’s not quite the same.
So, the moral of this story is don’t throw away something in your abstract works just because you think it’s gone wrong. It is highly likely that someone out there will think it’s great. I now keep everything! Thankfully, my stock of “also rans” is very small!
I hope my 7 tips help you to understand what lies under the bonnet (hood) of an abstract painting but if you’d like to know more about my process follow me on Instagram (@awberyart) where I often post my works in progress or visit my YouTube channel to see some of my works in action.
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