Textures and backgrounds for abstract painters - Part 2

1. Introduction to part 2 of background for abstracts: welcome to part two of textures and backgrounds. We're going to learn lots of new techniques again, and we're going to have a great time. So let's go right away into looking at what we're going to do and have fun, and we'll see you at the end of the course. 2. Oil pastels for texture: mark making with oil pastels and wax crowns by Doris Shut. This is really fun. So here's wax and here's oil pastels and it's ah different way to create a background. So I would scribble marks all over my canvas or my paper to create a texture. The fact and then I would paint on top of that. So here's what happens when you paint on top of it. It really helps if your paint is a little bit Watari, you just paint on top and you end up with these very subtle lines underneath. And I love doing this for a background. You can add all kinds of things, and you can also do the same thing with just plain wax. I use just a plain candle and created that background texture sold Here are two ways you can create more textures. Here's some marks that I made on a different surface, so I painted the surface first. Then I added the marks, and then I painted again, so you can do both. So there's a lot of options for you to use oil, pastels and wax. Have fun will see you in the next section 3. Spackle: Spackle by Doris Shop Spackle is just a modeling compound that you used to fill holes in the wall. When you put the nail in the wrong place and it comes in different kinds of brands and colors, they usually all dry white, and they're really good for making textures. So it works really well with a palette knife. But you can use many other ways to create spackle textures. The idea is to keep it relatively thin, because if it's too high, it does wear way, or it just cracks and falls off so you can create textures by using a palette knife. Or you can use stencils like a good, really good stencil. Is this doily paper. It's great for making textures, and you just rub through the little holes and then lift, and it's not very complicated. So usually when I use a texture, I try to use it more than once, and I like to stick two odd numbers. So this is just a design concept that I find has really helped me in the past. So you just create textures many different ways so you can apply it that way or you can subtract it So here I have a piece of card that I can just use to create more texture just like that, And I can add more modeling compound and do it again. You so you can press into the modeling compound or you can you actually go through it. So it's a great way to create textures. You can use cheesecloth. That's another texture that's really nice. You just spread it on top of the choose Kloss like that and lift and see leaves those tiny little marks that are really fun. So do it again. Remember, you're doing this three times and you're creating very tiny textures. I love this one. I use it a lot so you can paint and put Texas this compound on top or you can put it underneath. You convey do both, and you can add it at any time period in your painting process. So I'm just going to finish it off a little bit, and then you let it dry. Well, it takes about 1/2 hour to dry, and then you're ready to paint, so we'll just let this dry and then a paint on top of it. It's a really fun process and really easy to use, and a lot of people love it. It's a great way to create textures and add lots of detail and surprise elements in your painting. Sometimes you can leave that Jews cloth right in there, too, but I like the texture of this way. There it ISS. We're going to let that dry and then paint. Here's the painted surface. What I did is I just took water color paint and painted on top and mostly watercolor this time. But you can use a water down acrylic paints, and you let it seep in. Here's what you absolutely need to do afterwards is take gel and seal it. You can add as many or as few colors as you like. Water down paint works best, so you just water down your paint and add to it. And then you jelled a surface. My lights blue when when I was recording this. So that's why you get two different looks. So here's the finished product. It's beautiful. I love the look of it, and it's a great way to add texture. So do this now and we'll see you in the next section. 4. Spattering: spattering by Doris Shoving. This is a great way to add more texture to your painting. Most people that have done watercolor know about this technique. You take a toothbrush and you spatter. I've never really mastered the tooth breast technique really well, I like another way of doing it. But here's what happens with a toothbrush. The other way is to just use your brush and tap on top of another brush. I find this works better than the toothbrush. I get more even spattering and less of those big floppy dots that I don't always like. So that's all there is to that. Just dip your brush in and tap on top of another brush, and it just creates all those very interesting marks that add a lot of interest. Do this now on. We'll see you in the next section, Theo 5. Sponge textures: using a sponge for texture. So instead of a painting this time, I thought I just used these coasters and show you how to create textures because you can paint on top of anything. So you just dip your breath, not your brush your sponge in paint and tap, and that's all there is to it. And you can create different layers of textures like this. You can create texture on top of texture like that, and you can dip it into different colors. That's it. See you in the next section. 6. Spray paint with a difference: spray paint number two by Doris Shoving He was a different way to use spray paint. I don't I don't like this surface, so I'm going to paint on top of it to create a different background. So I spray and I spray a second color and you can leave it like that if you want, but you don't have to. Here. I'm going to take a piece of paper, put it on top, see how it lifts some of the paint, and I get summoned in underneath part and some of the texture from the paper as well. So you just put your paper down and lift rub a little bit. First, I can add more paint if I don't like it. The beauty of spring paint is you don't have to stop. You can create whatever you want, and another thing you can do is just scrape into that's pre paint and create a texture there, too. And that's it just a different way to use pre paint. Not very many people do this. Basically, they just pray and leave it or create stencils and spray through that stencils. But this is another way of using spray paint so you don't like that texture. You just spray some more on top and add more texture. So here I'm trying to repeat the texture they had before, and I'm trying to create like an ex composition or maybe a T composition, and that's a great background. I can take a tool and scrape into the paint and add more marks if I want to. I could just add more paint on top of those marks and scrape again and see the color underneath. It's just a fun way to start a painting and not worry too much about what's happening. Just play with the paint and enjoy. So I'm going to spray again like this and have it a little more subtle. So I love the way that looks, and I like the effect of the muted marks. So that's another thing you could do. Or you can keep spring. There's a lot of options there with spray paint. This brave bottle is creating a lot of spots, and that's okay. This time it's not always okay every time. So I have spots. I have marks. I'm going to just take paper and do like a printmaker and remove some of the paint. I'm doing this outside. You can see some of the cement blocks underneath. Be careful when you're spraying. Don't do it so much indoors. It is very smelly and is considered toxic. So have fun on. We'll see you. 7. Stencil making: making your own stencils by Doris Shop Nothing could be easier than making your own stencils. What you need is something to trace. I have some leaves here and a clear piece of plastic. A heavier plastic is better. I use a marker to trace the object that is under the plastic. I'm using some really leaves here, so I want the texture to be copy properly. So I just draw it with the marker and I do all the leaves. This is really easy. You do have to be careful not to smear the ink. Once you've drawn it, you can actually change the drawing if you like. Um, you can have bigger leaves, smaller leaves. Even though the leaf is that shape, you can change it up and then you take an Exacto knife and you just cut. So I'm cutting the shapes off the leaves. I'm adding the little tiny, jagged edges. Sometimes I am altering some of the shapes just a little bit, so they look better so you can do this with any kind of thing that you want to create a stencil for. You can use it for creating a lace pattern. You can use it to make bottle shapes. You can use it to make lipstick shapes. You can make it with any kind off object. Now you take the piece of the plastic out quite often. When you're tracing like this, you forget some parts, so it's good to do it one at a time like this and just cut and get it the way you wanted here. I've speeded up the camera so you don't have to wait so long. I normally take a lot of time with the cutting. You want to get the cutting just rate. If it's not right, it's going to show when you're you're using it as it's stencil. So here I have my leaves and then I can paint. You can use a brush. You can use a sponge. You can use all kinds of things, so I'm just spreading the paint to give you an idea off what the stencil would look like. I just want to show you what it looks like, so be gentle. Don't put the enormous amounts of pain because they do seep under the stencil. When you're done with the stencil and the paint, you can just wash it off at the sink, and it's really easy. So here you have the shape and there you go. You can use the insight part that you cut away and use that as a different kind of stencil to so I can use it like a reverse stencil and negative shape. So there's lots of options here. Here's some leaves and two ways to make a stencil. The other way is to use the actual leaf as a stencil and paint around the leaf. Now, the downside of this one is you can only use it a couple times the plastic stencil you can use a lot of times, so enjoy. Have fun making these stencils do this now and we'll see you in the next section. 8. String background: string background by Doris Shy. This is a really fun process. All you have to do is take some string, dip it in paint like this and just make sure it's well painted up and keep going like that , and they make sure it's really saturated in that paint. And then you take a canvas or a piece of paper like this and put your string on there. Put another piece on the top. Rub carefully. You can do this with two chemise is it does work and then you take the string and pull and ah, you end up with some very interesting beginnings for your paintings. This is really fun. So try this out. Do this now and we'll see you in the next section. 9. Vaseline: using Basilan by Doris Shy. You can use it as a lean to create great texture. Basilan with petroleum jelly. Actually, I think Basilan's a brand name, but we always call it that here. So you just press the petroleum jelly onto the surface of your painting, and here I'm going to do stripes. I'm going to try and have different ways to create that, a little bit of texture. So I'm going to have raised going around the tree, and that's my goal. So I'm going to add this Jilly. And wherever there is jelly, there will be no paint. So that's what you have to keep in mind when you add the jelly, the petroleum jelly. What happens is it is a resist, and as a resist, it will stop the paint from going to that spot. And that's all there is to using petroleum gel. Once you have done and applied the petroleum jelly Orv as a lean to your surface, then you take some paint and paint on top of it. I want a lighter surface. There's time, so I'm going to add it on top and you can see where the paint resists. See how it is how it resists. Wherever there's petroleum jelly, it resists. It doesn't let the paint sit there. So what happens is you end up with this wonderful texture, and it's very interesting. You can just paint on top, and it helps if there's watery paint. So just keep your paint as watery as possible. And then it seeps in between those little bubbles of petroleum jelly and creates that effect just like you're seeing now. So you end up with little tiny marks, almost looking like rain around the tree surface. That's more or less what I want it often petroleum jelly is a surprise. You want to create a certain in fact, and you might get close to it. But you have to accept that it's not completely controllable. And then I could move things around while the paint is still wet and eliminate where I don't want the pain to be here. I added a second color. I added purple because I wanted to change, have a variety of color. So I had the light color first, and now the darker color, and it creates a really high contrast of little areas over, and I do like that part, so just keep adding wherever illusion, any petroleum jelly that gives you that texture. See how it's done, a different kind of texture again. So there's a contrast high light color contrast and now a darker color contrast. You can keep adding layers as much as you like. If you don't like what you see, just add another color. It's not any more complicated than that. It's a really easy process, and it's a great way to create an after the fact on your painting. So do this now and we'll see you in the next section. 10. Wet in wet: weapon went on canvas. Here's another fun technique. You wet the surface of your canvas. First, I just use a spray bottle, and then I added some color. I just block in a lot of the color. Keep your colors wet and you just had color. Fill it all in, and we're going to have this surface that where the colors will bland really easily. Now I'm going to add some blue because I just like blue and I'm just going to add drops and then just add water. So I'm going to add a few more drops over there, and then I add a wet, wet brush and make sure that color blends together. And I'm adding, I'm I'm writing some more and I want to cover the whole surface just like that, and you just keep painting until you're happy. You just keep adding as much as you like. The next step for me is adding drops of color, so I'm going to spatter some color into those other colors and see how where the paint is, whether it blends together so you keep adding and adding just like I'm doing. And when the paint is wet, the paint's breads, and that's what I like. I like it when the paints breads a lot, and then I take a spray bottle and I spray even more for the paint to flow together just like that. And that's called weapon wet because you're adding what paint onto a wet surface and you're adding even more water. Now I can choose to leave those little white marks there are. Take him out and while it's wet, this is the time to tweak your painting and what you'll do. Once you're happy with what you have, you let it dry, and that's a wonderful background for any type of painting. So here it is all dry, and I love it. I'm just going to add very little. I'm just going to pick a topic that would go on to this and just work it. Sometimes I see shapes in there. I see a flower in there right now, and you can just draw the areas you want and keep adding more paint. The options are limitless. I'm going to use it as a background. I can just draw in whenever I want and keep painting the I think it looks better on this side, and then I might add something here. There's lots of options. I'm just going to keep going and adding and thinking about what I want to do. I might want to do a T composition. I might want to do an H composition. My options are limitless. Create your weapon with technique now and we'll see you in the next section. 11. Yupo paper ideas: using you pull paper for mixed media, and I am shocked by Doris Shy so you can do anything on you. Pull paper. It's like a plastic paper that is really fun to paint on. And here I'm just doing a flower shape and adding just brush marks to create that flower shape. The beauty of beautiful paper is it is in the interesting effects you can create. So the more water your paint is, the more it will blend together and create a look that is a surprise. Basically, so long as you like that, then you can just keep going. I'm just going to keep adding paint. Sounds I inside the flower shape to go with this gold color that I've chosen. Blue Blue is on the opposite side of the color wheel of this yellow orange, and it's a great addition. It makes this yellow orange pop out, and that's what I want. No, that looks fairly simple. I'm adding a darker version off the blue in the background. It looks like it's fairly easy to paint arm, but now we're going to add something else to it afterwards, and you'll see what what happens on you pull paper. This paint is relatively dry, but now I'm going to add drops of water and see what happens. The paint starts the puddle and pool and create some wonderful interesting effects. It just keeps going and going and going. I'm going to add a few more darks here just to create the contrast. You don't know what it's going to look like until the paint starts to dry. So here it's pooling and it's going and it's looking like a mass. I'm going to try and save a few parts of it. I don't want that blue to girl everywhere, but I do like some of the facts that are happening now. Here's what happened. In the end, I took out some of the blue that was flowing into the yellow, and then what you do is you can start using a pen and start drawing. So you use this as a background and then you keep drawing to it. So I just love doing this part. I love adding the lines and having a really interesting project. You just never know what's going to happen. So I follow the lines of the paint. I don't invent new lines before I follow the lines of the paint, and I could do this in black or I can do this in white. I can use either color. It's very trendy right now to use white, but I thought I'd show you how to use both. So here's both, and then you can add other elements and marks. You can even collage on top of this, so there are lots of different effects that you can do. It's just a matter of trying them out. You don't have to stick to one, uh, kind off technique. If you don't like it, just switch it up to using all the techniques that you like yourself, and that's all there is to it. It's not any more complicated than that. Create a background, find something in it or whatever you like to see you in the next section. Theo 12. Conclusion: conclusion. Thank you for taking my course. We've had lots of fun together. Creating backgrounds is great fun and one of my favorite parts to painting we've created. We've created backgrounds by pouring peach, and we've created backgrounds using oil pastels and wax really easy around the house tools . We've even used newspapers to create backgrounds so that this is This is the kind of material you can find anywhere and easy to apply and no problem at all. And it makes great backgrounds. Great starts for any painting, even your household sponge of the tool. See how look at the beautiful textures it creates you can. You can use these techniques with any kind of pinking. So whenever your stock, So whenever your stock, you can just take out one of these techniques from your memory bank and create some great beginnings for your abstract paintings. Have fun. Having fun is what it's all about, and this is what you're going to do in this. Having fun is what it's all about, and I'm sure you've had lots of fun. So thank you for joining me again. We've had such fun together. Maybe you conjoined my next course composition basics for abstract and realistic painters. Here, we're going to experiments. Um, here, we're going to experiment with different ways of creating focal points and different ways to make your painting interesting. Well, that's it for now. We'll see you in the next course.