Modern Acrylic Painting: Create an Abstract Spring Floral with Tons of Texture

1. Welcome: [MUSIC] Have you ever tried to make your paintings super thick and felt frustrated with the amount of paint it takes to do this? Or maybe your paintings ended up looking flat, anyway. In this class, I'll teach you a simple technique that will not only create an interesting 3D effect on your canvas but also will save you a ton of paint in the process. Hello artist. I'm Amielynn Murray, a full-time painter, mom to three kids, a whoodle, and a little bird named Melody. I'm so happy that you are here to paint today together in this class, we will paint a spring floral that can be customized to match any space in your home. This type of painting has been the bestseller in my shop for years. In fact, I've sold over 1,200 pieces like this and ship them all over the world. This class is beginner-friendly but can be fun for artists of all levels. Because this painting style is abstract all you need to know how to draw is a circle and some lines to create a beautiful composition. To make your painting, you'll need just for main supplies. Acrylic paint, a canvas, or other hard surface, paint brushes, and my favorite secret ingredient some some paste. I would love to see your projects. It is truly my favorite part of teaching. Feel free to post a picture of your project here in the projects and resources section, or tag me on Instagram @amielynnmurray, so that I can like and share your work. For more artist resources, please visit my website, amielynnmurray.com. If you'd like updates on all of my Skillshare classes, please be sure to click that green follow button at the top of your screen. If you're ready to jump in, let's talk a little bit more about our class project. 2. Class Project: For our class project, we will be painting an abstract-style, spring floral with tons of texture. These paintings are great because you can really choose any colors to fit your space. The simple composition combined with your perfect colors can really pull a room together without feeling too overwhelming for the space. I've seen my clients display these in nurseries with matching bedding. They've put them in living rooms, bedrooms, and even bathrooms with some cute matching towels or matching tile. I encourage you to pick a small space in your home that might need a little something extra and design this painting to fit that space. You are welcome to post a photo of your space in the class project section and then let us know what colors you plan to use to coordinate with that space, or you can ask for advice if you're not sure. I love to see progress photos as you work through creating your composition in addition to your final painting. Please don't hesitate to post all of that in the project section. Next, I'll talk about some class resources that I've created to help you along the way. 3. Class Resources: [MUSIC] I've created a few class resources that you might find helpful. Remember that you'll need to view this class on your browser instead of the Skillshare app in order to access the resources. First, you'll find a guide with a supply list, written projects steps, and a handy composition sketch in addition to some color palette ideas. Second, you'll be able to access a video I created for beginners, which explains different types of modeling paste and four basic texture painting techniques. It's a great place to start if you've never heard of modeling paste before and might just want to dip your toes into this world of texture painting. If you have any questions in the process, please feel free to post them in the discussion tab. I'm always here to help and I love to chat with students. Next, I'll talk about the supplies you'll need for our painting project. See you there. 4. Supplies: [MUSIC] Let's talk about the supplies we will need for our project. The first thing you need is a rigid surface to paint on. I typically use a canvas for this. Today, I'll be using a canvas that is one-and-a-half inches deep. But you don't need to do that. You can use a canvas of any depth or even a flat canvas, works perfectly fine for this project. You want your surface to be rigid so that it doesn't bend too much and crack your modeling paste. Next, you'll need acrylic paint. Any type will work, so I do encourage you to use what you have. But if you're interested in knowing my favorite brands and types of acrylic paint, I do talk about this in depth in the supply section of my first Skillshare class, Paint With Texture. One thing I do when I want a very specific color of paint is actually use house paints instead of acrylics from a tube. These are just the paints that you can get at your local hardware store that you would paint on your walls. They typically offer them in a small sample size. If you're trying to coordinate with bedding or a wall color or something very specific in your space, this can be a great option. For this painting, I will personally be using a mix of heavy body acrylics and some house paints. A small disclaimer, in this class we will not go into depth on color mixing so you do need to have some sort of background knowledge of how to either acquire or mix the colors that you need. Did you hear my bird? She's being loud. Next, you'll need a few paint brushes. You'll need a larger brush for painting the background. I like to use the same type I'd use to paint my walls. Just something purchased from the hardware store for that. Next, you'll need a medium-sized filbert brush, which just means that it's rounded at the top. This is the best kind of brush for painting circles. Third, you'll want a round brush for swirling your modeling paste into the circles. Forth, you'll need a small liner around a Size 1 for painting the thin stems of your flowers. Of course, this class would not be possible without my favorite ingredient, some modeling paste. I'm going to be using flexible modeling paste but I also like light modeling paste as well. But, again, I encourage you to use what you have on hand. I also recommend having water and a paper towel for cleanup. And that's it. Once you've gathered all your supplies, the next thing that we will talk about is choosing a color palette for our painting. 5. Choose a Color Palette : [MUSIC] It's no secret that I love mint green and combine that with some pinks, some peaches and corals, and it is one of my favorite color palettes. If this works for your space, you're welcome to follow along and use similar shades. If you'd like to choose a different color palette, I have a few tips for you. First, in the class guide, I've included some color palette ideas that have been very popular in my shop. You're welcome to choose any of those for your peace today. Second, if you're looking at your own space to pick colors, try to limit your palette to three main shades. For example, my painting is mint, gray, and coral but I'm able to add some variety within the coral shades. As you're choosing you'll need a background color, a neutral color for the flat circle flowers, and several shades of a color that really pops for your textured florals. In my case, this is the coral pink peaches that I've combined. In addition to your three main colors you will also want to have some white paint on hand. After you've picked your color palette and gathered your paints, it's finally time to put them on the Canvas. We will start next by painting the background together. 6. Paint the Background: It's time to paint the background. As we do this, we're not really worried about flower placement or making any sketches. We're just going to paint a nice flat layer on the background that goes from light at the top, to dark at the bottom. I've got my blank canvas ready to go. This canvas is 16 by 16, but please feel free to use whatever you have on hand. To paint this background I'm going to create an effect that goes from light at the top to a little more dark and saturated at the bottom. My background will be a mint green, but we're going to start with white at the top. I'm just squeezing out some white straight from a tube and I'm going to make a small half-circle at the top of my canvas in white. It's hard to see, but there it is so little half-circle shapes. Picture this as the brightest spot of the sky where the sun is brightest up there. Might add a little more to thicken that layer up a bit. Nice thick layer of white on the top of my canvas. The next thing I'm going to do, while this is still nice and wet up there is get out a minty green. This mint green is actually just a house paint that I got at my local hardware store. It's this nice light, minty color so I'm going to start by dipping just a little bit in. My brush is still pretty dry, just has a little bit of that light green on it and I'm going to put that right around the edge of my white layer. Then my brushes quite dry right now. I'm just going to blend those together. I just take my brush over this spot a few times, keeping it nice and dry and light on the canvas and it blends that white in what that minty color. Then I'm going to get a little bit more of that mint green on my brush this time and put that underneath, that blended portion. I'm just working in the same arc, following the same semicircle, upside-down rainbow that I made with the first layer of white paint. Then as my paintbrush dries out, I'm going to do the same thing and just work in between those layers. Light with a nice dry brush and blend those colors together. My white is blended pretty nicely with my mint green. If it's not perfect, don't worry because we are going to paint over the top of this, so you won't see every imperfection in the background. Next, I'm going to just fill in more of that mint green and travel all the way down to the bottom of the canvas. Filling in the mint as I go. You can put it on pretty thick and generally if you've got a nice paint if you're using a heavy body acrylic or even these house paints. You generally can get away with one layer on the background. If your paints are thinner, you might want to do this a second time and add a second layer onto your background. I am working quickly because I do want to get the whole background covered before the paint dries, because once it's dry you can't blend it in. At this point, you have two options. You can simply leave your background two colors, the white and in my case, the mint green, or whatever color you happen to be using, or you can add a third color. I have this darker greenish, blue shade that I'm going to add just to the bottom of the painting. This is just giving it one more variation at the bottom of the Canvas. It'll just add a little more depth to the background but if you don't want to add a darker shade to the bottom, totally fine. You don't have to. Now that our background layer is done, we have to let this dry for about 10-15 minutes. Grab yourself a cup of tea and we will meet back here to put a flat layer of circle flowers right on top of this. See you then. 7. Paint a Flat Layer of Flowers: [MUSIC] The next step is to add a layer of flat circle flowers directly onto this. You can either sketch your flowers on and then paint or just start painting. If you're not feeling confident about your layout, it's totally okay to grab a pencil and just sketch right on top of this dried paint. I can pick where I might want a bunch of flowers traveling up the side of my canvas here. I'm going to mark them in. They don't need to be perfect circles. I'm just marking in where I might want some of these circles to be. I've also provided a sketch for you in the class resources, so if you wanted to just use that layout and copy the circles that I've already made on there, that is totally fine too. I'm going to do about four stems of these flower bunches growing up my canvas. I like to make my tallest ones on the outside, and then my center ones down just a little bit, almost following this arc that I've already created on the canvas. I will go ahead and draw in the rest of these. I'm going to speed up my camera, but then you can see what my composition will look like once I start painting. [MUSIC] You'll notice I'm using a variety of sizes. I like my largest circles to be near the bottom and get a little bit smaller as I travel upwards. [MUSIC] I feel good about this sketch that I've created. I'm going to go ahead and start painting these circle flowers. To do that, I'm using just this medium gray that I've mixed up. But again, feel free to choose your own colors. I'm also using a filbert brush. I actually have a couple of different sizes. My smaller brush is about a size 10, and that's going to be nice for some of the smaller circles, and then I'll use this larger brush for the larger circles. I'm just going to paint the circles right on there where I've sketched them. I like to start on my left and work to the right because I'm right-handed. If you're left-handed, sometimes it's nice to start the opposite way. It just keeps your handout of the wet paint. You'll notice my circle technique. This is something I've done for a very long time, is to put the paintbrush down, hold it quite still, and move your paintbrush in a radius around that center point. It doesn't make a perfect circle, but it keeps it pretty close. It's like those campuses you used to use in math class in school, where you'd put the point down and then circle it around. Picture your paintbrush as one of those. [MUSIC] For my smaller circles, I've switched to using my smaller brush, and I will just jump back and forth as I paint these. [MUSIC] I've got my first layer on. Now by the time I've reached this side, this side has dried pretty well, so I do like to go through and put a second coat on this layer typically. [MUSIC] We're going to let this dry for a moment and then paint the stems on these flowers. When I first started painting these, I really wanted my stems to be perfect. I even considered taping them off just to get a really uniform line. As time has gone on, I have learned that imperfect lines look much more interesting overall. What I do, you'll see I started at the top, and I just start drawing stems downward. Now on this stem here, we can have this stem branch off and catch these circles. Just picture, this is like a long bunch of flowers growing up out of the bottom of the canvas, and there's little stems and sometimes some extra little leaves or little sprigs coming off the sides of the stems, and they go all the way to the bottom of the canvas. This layer does not have a lot of contrast from the background, and that's okay. I plan it that way, just so that it blends into the background. We're going to think of these as flowers that are far away. They're often the distance. They're not going to be the star of the show on the painting, but they are going to add depth to the canvas. Picture this as our second bunch of flowers. I'm going to start with the top one, make a stem that goes down, a little curvy, and the same stem can flow through that next flower. Then it might have some sticking out one way. Some sticking out this way that would catch that other flower. We got a little extra on the top and then continue to the bottom of the painting. We start at the top, draw a stem down. For this, I'm using my size 1 liner brush, which I'm sure you saw. I'm not worried about perfectly straight stems, I'm not worried about perfectly uniform lines. As long as it's close, it's totally fine. We don't want our painting to look like a machine made it. We want to see the hand of the artist in there, and that's often through just these imperfect strokes of paint. [MUSIC] One tip, as you are painting the stem is to rest your palm, the palm of your hand on the canvas, on the table, just to give your self a little bit more stability as you draw those lines with that tiny brush. [MUSIC] The background is a great place to practice because a lot of this will end up being covered up. That's why I'm not spending a ton of time making this background layer perfect because we are going to put our texture right over the top of this. Our background layer of flowers is finished. I'm happy with it. It's just the right amount of interest in the background that won't draw attention away from the bright texture florals that we will add on top. We're going to let this dry for a few minutes and then meet me back here with your modeling paste to add our texture right on top. See you then. 8. Texture Time: [MUSIC] It's time to add our texture, now that our background circles have dried. If you would like to trace your circles onto the canvas before adding your texture that is completely fine. I will do that here just to show you how that option would work. I've collected some things from around my house. A mason jar lid actually works really well to trace circle, and then I've found some other little bottle and jar lids from around my house. I'm going to use these and I'm going to just trace the circles and show you where I will put those textured flowers. If you want a reference for where to put your circles, remember there is that sketch available in the class resources. [MUSIC] I do recommend using a variety of sizes just to keep it interesting on your canvas. [MUSIC] Now, you'll notice, as I'm sketching my circles onto the canvas, I'm going to follow the same pattern I did with the background layer, where I will have one bunch of flowers growing up here, 2, 3, and then 4. However I want them to be offset from the background just a little bit so that we make sure we see those flat backgrounds circles peeking through. [MUSIC] I'm pretty happy with this sketch. Remember, this is just roughly marking in where our textured flowers will go, and it's totally fine once you start applying the texture if things change a little bit. Now for the fun part, we are going to add the texture. For this, I'm using a modeling paste. This you can pick up at your local craft store or even order online. What I'm going to do is just take a scoop with my round brush, put it in one of the circles, and I'm just going to swirl it around. It is totally okay if it goes outside of the lines you've drawn, and is not a perfect circle. I like to work from left to right, so that my hand does not go in the wet paste. I'll grab a chunk, put it inside the circle, and then swirl it around. You want to let your modeling paste stay thicker in some areas, thinner in some areas, so that you have that nice chunky 3D effect. Don't worry about making it perfect, none of these have to be perfect circles. We're just giving the abstract impression of flowers, growing in bunches heading up towards the sunshine. This really is a simple process and it's pretty fun. It feels like you're painting with frosting, and just swirling it right onto your canvas. The great thing about this method is that we're just not even worried about color right now, we are just focused on composition. We're just marking in where we want each of our circle flowers, and then we can figure out colors once this dries. Now, one thing you'll notice is that I am making overlapping circles. I highly encourage this, it adds even more depth to your composition so we have some that are farther back, and some that are farther forward. I'm going to speed up my camera for the rest of these. Now that we have the technique down, I'll just be doing the exact same thing over and over again. Get a nice big dollop for these larger ones, maybe even two, using my round brush and just swirling it around [MUSIC] to the edge of that circle. We finished 1, 2, 3, bunches of flowers. I'm onto my fourth and last one, and you'll notice these are just offset from the background flowers just a bit so we make sure we're seeing those. I'll go ahead and finish up this last bunch of flowers, and then we'll be done with texture. I have marked in all of the textured circles that I drew. At this point, I like to take a step back and just look and see if I need something anywhere else to create a little more balance. I do think I want a little circle right here, maybe even one extra at the bottom here. Feel free to take some time and look over your composition, and make sure that you're happy with it. Again, none of these need to be a perfect circle and if you actually look at some of my individual circles, none of them are perfect circles. But the overall impression are that these beautiful chunky circles are forming the flower bunches up the canvas. Imagine if we had used paint for all of this, how much paint we would have used up trying to build this texture, simply with a heavy body acrylic. This modeling paste is a total game changer and will save you a ton of paint in the end, because the only paint we'll need to use is what we're going to paint right over the top. We finished adding the texture and if you look at your painting, you have all these white textured circles just sitting there on your canvas, and this is really going to be the hardest part of the process. You are going to have to get up, walk away from your painting, and let it dry overnight. Once we come back tomorrow, those textures circles will be nice and dry, and we can just paint right over the top. [MUSIC] 9. Paint Over the Texture: [MUSIC] It's time to get our colors together that we'll use to paint on top of our texture. The main color I will be painting is this coral shade, and this is just a heavy body acrylic. The color is actually called light pink, but it's this beautiful, warm coral color. Now, I will be adding some variation to this colors so that everything isn't just the same shade of coral. To it, I'm going to add some pink, some peach, some white to lighten it up, and I'm also going to do a little bit of magenta today. These I will just use to mix in a little bit to my coral so that my painting has some nice variety within this color. Our modeling paste has dried. Now what we can do is just paint right over the top of this. This gives us really good control over the color instead of mixing it in with the paste and hoping for the best with how that color will look. I like to approach painting these in batches. What I like to do first is use my most saturated coral color straight out of the can. I'm going to pick which flowers I will paint in this coral shade. I just start by marking them in. That will be one. I think this will be one over here. We'll put one up here, one towards the bottom of the canvas, and probably one over in this corner to balance it out, and maybe a final one down here. You know what? Let's add one more. Once I have this overview of where this color is going to go, I can stand back and see if I like it and see if I'd like to add anymore to the painting. One more right there. I love this color. Now that I have these marked in, I'm going to paint each of these circles in this color. Now, to paint on top of this texture, I use my filbert brush, which is rounded at the top. This one's covered in paint, so it's hard to tell. But this is the easiest brush for painting a circle because it has that rounded edge. I put my paint down. Then I like to start with the edge of the circle flower, just letting the paint go right around that edge. It is okay if it overlaps off of your texture and onto the canvas. Sometimes that even helps seal that edge between the texture and the canvas even better. If you weren't happy with the exact shape of the texture, you can correct it a little bit with the paint as you go over the top. Notice I'm making a mess on this flower next to it. I don't even care because I'm just going to go back and paint over that flower with a different color. Only worry about the flower you're working on. If a little bit spills over, you can see I did it here too, if something spills over onto another circle, don't even worry about it. I'm coming around this edge, making sure there's no gap between the texture and the canvas. Sometimes you have to go back in there and really fill in any spots where there might be a little gap between the texture and the canvas. One thing I should mention is that I'm starting with the textured circles that are farthest back. You notice this one is behind these two. This is the back layer of flowers, this is the same, this one is behind this one, and this one is in back of this one. I'm going to build my painting from farthest back to farthest forward using my most saturated colors in the back and moving forward with lighter versions of this coral. I'm going to fill in the rest of these coral flowers, and then I'll show you how I add the next color. [MUSIC] Once these dry, I am going to add a second coat right on top of them. I'm happy with this first layer of bright coral. Next, I'm going to add a little something to my coral to mix up a different color. For instance, I might take my coral and add a bit of this lighter pink to it, creating more of a warm, pinky coral shade. Another thing I will do sometimes is just mix right here on the painting. For instance, if I wanted this to be that color, I might even just take a little coral, a little pink, and just mix it right here on the canvas. What I'm going to do is take this pretty lighter pinky color and mark in some that I might want to be this color. It's not going to be a ton, maybe three or four in that color. That feels good to me. Then I'm just going to go through and paint these the same way I painted that bright coral. [MUSIC] For my next group of colors, I'm actually going to add a little bit of this bright magenta in and see what happens. [MUSIC] This type of painting can actually be quite relaxing because you're not making a ton of choices along the way. Once you've picked where your colors are, you can just focus on your paint strokes and really filling it in with that beautiful color. I really love that magenta. Next, I think we're going to add a lighter version of this coral and just pick a few flowers where I'm just mixing the coral with some white. [MUSIC] For these front layers, I'm going to use some very light shades of our coral just to add some really good contrast between lighter and darker colors on the canvas. [MUSIC] We've got a good variety of saturated colors and lighter colors. All of the remaining ones, I will paint white after I get this little one that I forgot right here. [MUSIC] It's time to add that top layer of white paint. Same method as before. I know my modeling paste is white, but you can see that it definitely doesn't have the same coverage as white paint. I always make sure to paint over the top, even if I am just using white. Now, I know I have sped up my cameras several times for the sake of this class. However, I want you to know that it has taken me about 45 minutes to paint each of these colored circles. Please don't rush. Take your time on this to pick your colors and enjoy the process. I'm just speeding it up for your sake so you don't have to watch me paint circles for 45 minutes. I'm finishing up this last white circle. I will probably go back and add a second coat to these once they dry. But I did want to show you one other thing I like to do with white at the end, and that is to use a smaller brush so I've got this smaller size 10 filbert brush. I just like to add some extra white dots for variety. We have the larger textured circles. Then these are maybe like little buds flowers that haven't bloomed yet. There's just a few sprinkled around the canvas near these bunches of flowers. These just give it that little extra bit of variety so that we're not looking at only textured circles that are similar in shape and size. You can totally pick where you add these. You can add a lot, you can add a little, you can add none if you don't like them. It is totally up to you. [MUSIC] I am happy with this. You feel free to rework yours and change your colors until you love it. This looks nice to me. I'm going to let these dry and then the next thing we will add are our thin stems with our liner brush. See you there. 10. Paint the Stems: [MUSIC] To paint my stems, I'm using a dark charcoal gray, to help it pop from that background gray, and I'm just going to do the same method I did when I was painting those stems in the background. I like to start at the top of a bunch of flowers, and move my stems downward, and as I go the same as I did before, I make some little sprigs flaring out the sides. This stem you'll notice, it just passed right over the top of that textured flower. It got a little bumpy on the way and I do not even worry about that. These stems do not need to be perfectly straight, so I work one bunch of flowers at a time, moving down the canvas, and going over a textured flower when needed. If you want the stem to travel behind that textured flower, that is totally fine too, it doesn't have to go over the top, I could have stopped, let it go behind that flower, and then continued along at the bottom. Okay, so you'll notice with this group of flowers, everything has a stem and feels attached to a bunch. You can make it as thick or as sparse with these stems as you like. Please know that it takes a little bit of time to get this technique down, you want to use a real light hand with your paintbrush, so if your stems look a little thicker than you'd like at first, that's totally okay, it just takes some time to practice this. Remember, even though I speed up my camera, this is really a slow methodical process, and you definitely do not need to rush. [MUSIC] If you run into a flower that just really there's no space to put a stem on it, just don't, you can totally skip it. If you don't like drawing over your textured flowers, you can also make all of your stems traveling behind the flowers in front of it, you don't have to paint over that textured area if it's not working for you. [MUSIC] I've added in all my stems, I'm happy with this, but this is also a great time to take a step back and see if there's any spots that look off balance or anything that needs a little extra stem, or extra anything. We will let these stems dry, and then our last step is going to be to paint the edges of the canvas to give it a finished look. I'll meet you back here once everything has dried. 11. Finishing Touches: [MUSIC] Our last step to finish off this painting is going to be to paint these white edges. This just gives it a finished look so that you can hang your canvas without a frame if you don't choose to frame it. For this, I am just using that same light gray shade that I used for my background flowers, and I'm going to just paint those edges. The hardest part is where the actual edge is, between your gray and your painted part. You just need to carefully make a line. If you are not confident in using a totally different color for your edges, one thing you can do is use the mint green that you used for the background and paint your edges in that color. That way you don't have to get this perfectly sharp line as your main colors we'll just blend into each other. I'm just painting right along these edges. I will end up doing two coats of paint on this just to make sure it's nice and thick. When I get to the corners, I just make sure I get it nice and thick so that it really seals those two pieces of canvas together. I'm going to repeat this process on all four edges of this canvas, and then we will let it dry. If you don't want to paint these side edges and you plan to frame your artwork, that is totally fine. You can just skip this step altogether. If you're painting on a flat canvas, you don't even have to do this step either. This flat canvases are great because you can just pop them right into a frame. Now, that my edges are painted, I like to just set these here on these cans of paint so that it's elevated off the table. We're just going to leave it there until it dries. Now that everything has dried, we can take a look at our beautiful finished painting. You can see all of that amazing 3D chunky texture that you would never get with just acrylic paints on their own. That modeling paste makes a huge difference in this painting, and it makes it so interesting and fun and something that you would want to hang on your wall. I hope that you love your new painting. I hope you'll share a photo with us in the class projects section. [MUSIC] 12. Final Thoughts: You made it. I hope that you had fun learning this technique and now feel confident adding it to your painting process. Most important, I hope that you had fun. Just to recap our two day texture journey together. We picked a space within a room that needed a little something extra. We picked colors and gathered supplies to make our textured floral just right for that space. We painted the background, added flat circle flowers and then loaded on the texture. Then we painted over the texture with the bright pop of color and finally painted the edges of the painting, and now you have a beautiful piece of art ready to hang in your space or give as a gift. If you enjoyed this class, I encourage you to check out my two other texture painting classes here on Skillshare. Together we paint quick, tiny textured landscape and beautiful potted flowers, all using that magical modeling paste and acrylic paint. Be sure to leave a review if you liked this class. I love the feedback that students give me. Remember, you'll have to open your browser to do that. I can't wait to see your project and keep in touch here on Skillshare and on Instagram. I believe that everyone is an artist and I'm so glad that you took the time to learn a new technique and make your own art today. See you next time. Bye-bye.