• How to get texture into your art.

Step by Step Textured Painting

So following on from my last post about using resin in my paintings I realised that I had actually meant to document the process of creating the painting shown in that article.

So I put together all of the images I took during the creation process and have made them into a step by step video of how I did it which I thought might be of interest to some.

For future paintings I have just got myself a new video camera so hopefully I will be able to do some better videos (although if my first attempt is anything to go by this may not actually work out so well!) so will use that in future rather than stills.

The painting took a few days including leaving the texture to fully dry (as it was quite thick) and going back and changing the gold, silver and greys until I was happy with the final painting.

I did use some big dried up pieces of texture so that it would have a more rocky effect but obviously these were all coated and mixed in with the PVA.

Anyway, I have uploaded the video on YouTube so here it is below. It is mostly created using the standard texture mix, some pale paint colours, silver leaf, silver and gold powder and some fine iron pyrite pieces added in.

The resin really brings out the colours in the ‘rockpool’ and really gives the effect of water so I don’t think it would have worked half so well without that.

Here are the written instructions:

Create your own ‘Rock Pool’ Painting

This painting is an abstract one which has a lot of different layers and textures but should be reasonably easy to follow using the instructions below. I have tried to adapt some of the things that I used in the paintings so that you can substitute household products instead.

You will need the following:

  • A Canvas
  • Household filler
  • PVA glue
  • Sawdust (optional)
  • Acrylic paint
  • Glitter
  • Silver leaf
  • Spray adhesive
  • Resin

Firstly mix up some texture to use on the canvas using the filler, PVA glue and sawdust. I actually use my own recipe for texture which you can find here if you want more info. The texture for this painting used slightly older, hardened plaster so that I got some nice lumps in it, but you can add some sawdust or maybe tissue paper to make the texture as lumpy as you want it.

So once you have mixed up your texture (make sure it is reasonably stiff and lumpy) then you can apply it randomly to the canvas. Form a round hollow which is surrounded by the texture for the rock pool. Scrape out the centre so that the pool is flat at the bottom.

Let the texture dry overnight.

When it is completely dry apply a couple of coats of white, slightly watered down, acrylic paint over the top, making sure to get into all of the cracks.

Once this paint is dry you will need to apply a few more coats in slightly different colours to add variety to the ‘hills’ and surrounding areas. You can use some darker colours but be sure to water it down really well and after leaving it for 30 seconds or so, wipe the paint away again so that you get a kind of weathered look. You can use a sponge or cloth to do this.

I added quite a few different colours (mostly pale blue, grey and silver) until I got the look I was aiming for.

To apply the silver leaf on this occasion I used the craft spray adhesive. Spray small amounts on to the areas where you want the leaf, leave for 10-20 seconds and then apply the silver leaf, as roughly as you can, using a brush to push it on.

In the case of my painting I also used some silver and gold powder to rub into some of the areas but this is entirely optional.

Once all of the painting is dry you can create the pool. For this I used blue and green paint, each watered down about 50:50 and then poured it into the pool area. I then sprinkled in some glitter and left it to dry overnight. The colours I used were permanent green light and Prussian blue.

When the pool is dry you can pour some resin over the top. If you have a resin mix that is 1 to 1 you can mix up small amounts easily using spoons.

You can see how the resin makes it look like a pool in the image on the left.

For this painting I just needed 3 dessert spoonfuls of each of the resin and hardener. You can get small resin packs on Amazon that should work pretty well.

Leave the resin to dry for 12 hours or so and it should be hard to the touch.

I used a spray varnish to finish off the painting but this is also optional.

 

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