Tiny Abstracts: Create Mini Paintings with a Limited Palette

1. WELCOME: One, this is Jay Johnson, and I'm here to welcome you to tiny abstracts create Mini paintings with a limited palette. In this class, you will watch me and learn how to use a variety of your tools that you have on hand. One paint color, two neutrals of your choice, and one accent color. You will learn how to take those and create some beautiful tiny abstract paintings using my very simple process and techniques. This will give you an experiment with that one color. Try to pick a color. You can pick the color I used or pick a color that you've never worked with before and two neutrals to learn the color, learn how it works, learn if it appeals to you or not, learn how it might look in a finished piece just from blending this with some neutrals. And it will give you the opportunity to play with accent colors as well. I say, use one in this class, but you can always use multiple accent colors if you would like. But I hope that you will step into class with me and have fun with this process of creating tiny abstracts because they are a delight. They're a delight to do. They're simple, they're fast. It makes for a fun, short studio session. It's a great way to loosen up and learn how your colors behave. And I encourage you to join us and experiment and let us see what you come up with. I look forward to seeing you in class. 2. CLASS PROJECT: Talk about your class project. Your class project is to use whatever materials you have to play with some color. You will start with one color. Just pick one. It doesn't have to be this one. Just pick one and some white and some black. And following along with what I did in the class with taping off the paper and using your one color and your two neutrals, create whatever you can with whatever tools you have. Brushes, palette knives, sponges, whatever. Whatever suits your fancy. And then pick an accent color. Doesn't have to be what I picked, which was cad red light. It could be a different accent color like I did on these other paintings I did in another studio session where I used a golden ochre. Wever feels good to you at the time and just experiment with that one color, a couple of neutrals and an accent color. Your class project is to do a sheet, taped off anyway you want. For class, I did this one before class, I did this one where I taped off smaller portions, tinier squares. And create a sheet that you can then use later in other art projects or turn these into finished art pieces for your customers and your clients. So, or do nothing with them if you don't want to, you don't have to. That's the whole point of these. They're fun. And I'd like to see what kind of fun and what kind of pieces that you come up with based on your one color choice and your neutrals and your one accent color and the way you type yours off. I'd like to see what you come up with. But keep that palette limited. This is all about working with that limited palette and experimenting with that one main color to kind of learn how that color works with your neutrals and blending and learn how it works with an accent. Feel free to use different accent colors. If you want to use different ones on each one, feel free to use different materials. I've used acrylic in this class, but you could use watercolor. You could use pastels, you could use markers. You could use No Color, too. You could use Guash. There's a variety of things out there. Use what you have, but one color, two neutrals, taped off and one accent and see what you come up with and be sure to upload your class project to the class page so that we can see what you come up with. And maybe it will spur creative ideas in all of us to see everybody's work. Thanks again, and now hope you guys have a great day. 3. PREPARE THE PAPER: Okay, our first step is to prepare the paper. I'm just using this cheap watercolor paper I picked up at Michael's. It's not very expensive. It's great for these fun little experimental projects. So I have a cutting board here. This is one of a set of three that came from Walmart for super inexpensive price. I like these because when I tape the paper to these, if I do get a little more fluid paint and want to tip it, I can easily pick it up. So I like using these. And I've got my trusty painter's tape. I'm just going to tape this sheet off. And I don't know if that piece of tape is quite long enough. I'm going to try to get it on there, fairly straight. Top and bottom, and I can see through here so I can see about where my border is there. Tape it down good. Turn it this way so I can do this correctly. And try to get this one. I try to make sure it's even when I tape it down. A little piece of tape right there. I didn't get that quite long enough. All right. Let's do the other side. Is This is how I do all these little mini abstracts. I tape them off like this and I tape this off into a grid after I make sure that's down good. Now, unless I'm preparing something for a specific size, I don't worry about sizes or I have it in my mind. I want to do squares. So I may tape this off where I can get some squares here. Let's do one that way. Try to get some squares on top, and I may or may not get squares. I may get some rectangles out of it. Doesn't really matter. I'll probably get some smaller down here. I'm trying to keep these pretty good size here. And try to get those where they're sort of squared. See that bottom one will be a little skinnier. That's okay. These aren't for any specific project. These are just for me to play with. I try to get it straight. And that's not straight. Something's not straight. Try not to spend too much time. I could leave these like this. I think I will. So I got a couple squares and some rectangulars, different ones. And then before I get started with paints, I like to just dampen the paper with a little fine Mr.. That helps the paint move a little better. Not too much water. And there we go. The paper is now prepared. 4. CREATE THE GRID PAINTING: You're preparing the paper, it's time to set up the palette. This is a very limited palette for this class. I'm using one color, sap green, which is not a color I've worked with very often, and it's time for me to experiment with a little bit and play with it. I'm just going to put some of that on the palette. See if I can get that top back on there so it doesn't dry out. I'm going to use white, titanium white. There's some of that on the pallet. I probably use a lot of white, so put a good bit of white. That may be a little too much. That's okay. So that's that and I have ivory black. White and black are obviously good neutrals to use. That's probably way too much black. So there's my palette, ready to go. I'm gonna set that off to the side. Make sure this tape is down. It's kind of bubbled up a little bit of the water. And then I have a variety of brushes, a couple round brushes, a little angled stubby brush, palette knife, some other brushes in case I decide to use them. I like to have a variety laid out and a catalyst wedge. I like those. I like to have a variety of tools laid out to work with. And the goal of these is not to think. It's just to act. So, I like to dampen my brush and dry it off on the rag just a little bit to tap out the excess water. And I like to start with the main color, which is the sap green. So I've just put a good bit of that on the brush. I'm not going to think. I'm just going to start swooshing and putting color wherever it lands on these taped off portions. And if I get some on the tape, I like to try to get off of there and use that on another one. And I don't try to fill the whole thing. Alright, there's some sap green. I'm going to go right into the white and get a little bit of white on this brush. Did not clean the brush, and I'm going to just get some white on here very quickly wherever it lands. Not thinking. If it mixes with it, that's fine. That's the whole point. Experiment with the color, the mixes, see how things go. All right, that's enough white. Now I'm going to go into the black. And because this is a big brush and black is kind of overwhelming, I'm just going to clean that brush off, and I'm going to go to the actually, I'm going to go to the little angled stubby brush I have, which used to be dampened a little bit. Tap it off just so it's got a little water. Get a little bit on there. Not too much. And I usually try to go with this in the areas where it's darker already and just do the same thing. Just scrub a little bit in wherever. Not thinking. Just experimenting here. Maybe less black on that one 'cause there's less dark area. And there I was thinking, wasn't I? And then this one's got very little dark. Alright, there's some black. Now to make things a little more interesting. I'm going to go in with actually, no, I'm going to get the palette knife. And I'm gonna mix a little bit of the white with the sap green. So I'm gonna pull some sap green right there and get a little bit of the white and mix those two together to get a little lighter shade and maybe a little more white because I don't think it's quite light enough for me. I want it to be kind of fresh looking. Ooh, that's a pretty green that made by doing that, really fresh looking for spring. That's what I'm thinking of. Everything around me is blooming. Everything has just turned green. I'm gonna get some of that on the palette knife. And these areas where there's some paper showing, I'm just going to start swooshing some of that into it just wherever. And I try not to leave too much on the tape and scrape that off and use some of that, too. Now, let's get some there, there there. Just looking for the white areas where it's really white on the paper. And if I end up making an interesting mark, I try to save that And this looks like quite a mess now. So I'm going to scrape off that green on there. And I'm gonna add some more white to that to really lighten that green shade up. Stir that around. Maybe even some more white there. So I've got a nice mix there of that. And since I have some on the palette knife, I'm just going to dab some on each one just to get what's on the palette knife off. Because I like the texture that a little palette knife gives. So I've got it mostly clean. Now I'm going to take my smaller brush, and that lighter color I just mixed. I'm going to get some of that I'm gonna turn the brush on the side, and I'm just going to start working some of that color in different spots. If a brush gets too dry, have to wet it a little bit more. There we go. So I'm not trying to create anything specific. I'm just messing with these shades of green that's created by the mixing. I go right over wherever. If I get some black on there, that's fine. And a little bit more. Alright, now, I'm going to take this same small round brush, clean it off really good in my water. Make sure it's kind of damp. And wherever there's hard edges, I'm going to gently work some of that in. Now, this may have dried a little bit, so I might need a little more water. Just trying to tone down some of these hard edges and do a little bit more blending. And if it's dry a little bit too dry, you can always do a little sprits of water which will help things soften up. This is why I like to work really, really fast on these. And move that paint around. I'm not blending it like totally. I'm just moving some of the edges where the hard edges are around. Let that water get in there, and that helps to do that. This one doesn't have a lot of black, so I can pick up some black from one of the other one and bring some more in there. I really like the shades this has created at this point. I'm just very loosely doing this moving from one to the other super, super fast. I got a little open spot here where there's a little bit of the base layer showing through in these couple ones here. So one thing I like to do I get a palette knife again and maybe get just a little bit of these colors that are left and swoop some color in there. And remember, I sprayed this. So the paper is kind of wet. At this point, which helps to move some of that better, bring in some of that lighter color in with the white and the lighter green. This area right here is where I was concerned with. It was showing a lot of the paper through there. Ooh, that made a nice mark. If I see that something makes a nice mark, I often try to. That one did, too. Leave it alone. And there. Now, one more touch up in any areas I see might need to be blended a little bit, and maybe even bring in more of the sap green. Let's just bring in a little bit right there. Anywhere I see where I might need that. Just where I just want a little more of that sap green color as it was from the tube. And if it blends with what's on there, that's okay. And still keeping the brush sideways to bring some of that in. I like that. And this looks like a terrible, terrible mess right now, I know. Alright. Wash off that round brush, give a little bit of dampness on it and move move some of these colors a little bit to blend them. I mean, this is all just how your hand moves with your brush and your tools. And if you're using watercolor, you could add more water. You could blend a couple of colors together, the two colors. But I like acrylic for a lot of these 'cause it brings in that texture. Like right here, there's some good texture. I don't really want to mess with that. Maybe a little bit down here at the bottom edge of it, pull some of that down. I try not to get too nitpicky at this point. This right here I'm not really liking. So I'm thinking of blending that out a little more on that particular one. I just go around and I find spots that I don't really like or that need a lit touch up at this stage. Try not to spend too much time on it because we're gonna come back with some accent color and just see what we can do with this mess. So that's three colors, sap green, black and white. And I don't want to waste this paint. So what I like to do when I have I'm gonna set this aside to dry. It's gonna have to dry before we add the accent colors. So I'm gonna set it aside. And what I like to do with the excess paint is really, really simple. I like to get as much of it as possible off on some paper. With a palette knife or brush or a catalyst wedge or whatever. This is just a journal that I do this then. These pages, these papers can become backgrounds for many abstracts or they can become collage papers. I don't like to waste paint. So I like to get as much of it as possible off on some paper as a background. And then these can be added to and turned into page papers or even used as a background for another painting or some color inspiration. So then I will set this mess aside to dry, but those are papers I can use later. And then I clean my pallet immediately when I'm done, so it'll be ready for my next step. So as soon as I'll put a fan on this, and as soon as the cutting board page is dry, we will come back and add some accent color. 5. ADD YOUR ACCENT COLOR: Alright, this is dry now. So it is time to add an accent color, which can be any color of your choosing. You don't even have to add an accent color if you like this shades of the green, and are happy with that. But I like to add a little fun accent. I don't know if I want to go that way. I'm thinking I might want to go this way or I like to turn the board and kind of see where I might want to go. Maybe this way. I don't know, just seemed kind of fun to do it a different direction. Now, I've got some cadmium red light here. And of course, it's really, really super, super bright. And there's some outside here. There's some coral roses, and I was looking at those and how pretty they look against the green. And this is a little a little bright for that. And I thought, what if I tone it down with a little bit of gesso. So I'm just going hopefully you can see this. I'm just going to put a little bit on the plate. If I won't need much, that's probably too much and a little bit of the white gesso mixed in with that. Find my palette knife here and just kind of stir that around and see what I can come up with. Color wise. Oh, yeah, that's definitely toning it down. I still feel I might want to tone it down a little more. So add a little more just so. And I'm not really I'll turn this this way. I'm not really worried about it getting too fluid from the gesso because I'm gonna add, oh, yeah, that's pretty. I'm going to add a lot of water to this to be able to flick little droplets on there. Oh, that's pretty. That does look like those roses outside. They're sort of a coral color. And I'm not going to apply this with the palette knife because it'll be too much. I just want little drops of this as an accent. So I'm gonna take this paper towel, clean that palette knife off, get another paper towel out because I'm probably going to need it. Got a little wipe there in case I need that. And I'm going to spray some water on that to really make it fluid. Probably have to get some more on there. It's still a little thick. Let's just put a lot on there. So, see, we've got really nice coral shade there now. I'm gonna wash that goopy paint off that brush. I'm gonna spray it a little more. On there because I don't need it to be really, really thick at all. I'm gonna test this one. I see, it's really thin on the brush now, and I'm just going to tap and flick it wherever it wants to go. And, of course, it's way too much paint. Get this really liquidy part and do it again. I don't want it too much. So I'm going to take some of this back off. Alright, let me move this out of the way. And let me decide where I might want to soften some of that. So to soften it, you just get your brush damp and just gently tap those little dots To break them up a little bit and get some of that color integrated. A little bit of speckles is okay, but I don't want it to be too much. This one's got a really big amount right there, so I'm going to spread that out. You got to do this kind of fast before things dry. Oh, I like that little I don't know if you see that made some little rings. That's kind of fun. And if you have a spot where you don't want it, just take that little wipe or your paper towel and dab it and tone it down a little bit. Let's get this one. It gives it that little bit of interest, kind of a garden feel all with accent color on this simple one color plus neutrals. Now, I got a litt too much on here. I feel right here on that one. So I'm gonna brush some of that off. Soften some of that. I'm not worried about the areas where it's speckled on the tape. And you can always, add some water in there to kind of move it around that way. And then catch it with the paper towel or the wipe to soften. But you got to get it before it really dries. Let's see if I can scoot that up where you can see it. I'm just adding some water to these 'cause they're getting kind of dry. And dab with that wipe or it's too much. Of course, there's a bunch on the tape that's distracting me. Now let's turn it the other way and take a look different ways. See, it's just some small accents in there. So now that has to dry. And once that's dry, then we can pull the tape and see what we've got. 6. SAVE LEFTOVER PAINT: I have another sheet here that I did before I did this. I'm going to set that aside to dry. This was done with the same colors here, the black white and the sap green. And then in this one, I used a couple other neutrals. And I thought, since I have some of this coral left, I'm going to do the same thing with this. And I'm standing up to do this one and just flicking that wherever. Trying to get some somewhere on each. Oops. I might have got a little too much there. Now, on this one, I'm gonna do something a little different. Many use the sprayer, which is an alternative. If you don't want to drop water on with the brush, you can use your spray bottle to move some of your accent color around. Like that. And I only have too much right there on that one. Well, I think it's too much. Not sure. This is really fun. I missed one right here. There we go. But the fine Mr. Spray bottle is the way to go with this. Now, this I had already taken off the cutting board, but I've got it pretty wet now I've sprayed it. And since it's not attached to the desk, I can kind of tilt it. Like sew and move some of that color around, which is another fun thing to do with the accent color. Now, this is all acrylic. But you could use watercolor if you wanted. I didn't have this particular shade of the coral I was after in any paint, and I knew I could get it with the acrylics really quickly. So that's why I just went ahead with the acrylics, but you can use whatever paint you have watercolor guh. You could add a lot of different things to this. I'm going to let this one dry and the other one dry, and then we are going to come back and peel the tape. But first, while those are drying, we're going to take my Trustee journal where I put the excess paint from the green, black and white. And since I have the coral left, we're gonna just get a little wild with what's left. Don't ever leave paint on the palette. Go ahead and do something with it on a blank sheet because like I said, these can be a base for something else. They can be a color inspiration for another one you do. They can be collage papers. They can be a lot of things. So don't waste it. Bind a blank piece of paper and just put it on there. So we've totally changed the look of those. If you want to, you can even do something like this. Put the pages over, get your extra paint, start another sheet. This is what these art journals are good for. Doing something with the extra paints and having something you can use. And you can use because I'm using the backsides of these papers, which I've squished together now, and peel them apart like sew. And you can decide, I've got some of the paper off. This is a thin journal, but that can be a collage piece right there. But you could use the front or the back side or whatever. Just don't waste it. Always save it. Now that piece is loose. Let's just put it over here. Don't be afraid to use your fingers, either. Let's see, that's a collage piece that we just used. So always do something with the extra paint on another piece of paper that could then become part of something else later on. That way, you're not wasting paint. That's just my tip of the day. And always clean your palette when you're done. Second tip of the day. Alright, we're waiting on drying time now. As soon as those dry, we're pulling the tape. 7. REVEAL THE PAINTINGS: Alright. I think we're ready to pull the tape now. This is the most exciting part. So I'm going to start with the middle pieces. As some people save the tape and use them in other projects, too, but I'm not a fan of that. Nothing wrong with it. It's just I'm tired of seeing the blue after I've done this. I like blue, not this kind of blue. Oh, I can tell they're already looking pretty. Oops, I got to get these side pieces first. Look at that. These are gonna be the sweetest little abstracts. And just with one color, and, of course, the neutrals and the accent. But you don't have to do an accent, like I said. Let's see here. What's what? Oh, this one at the other end, I used that extra little piece. Oh, these are so cool. See how pretty things get when you pull the tape? I am just loving these, and I'm not even a fan of green, but et's take a look. Let me move this out of the way. Oh, look how pretty. Look how cool these are. Oh, I can so see these framed up on greeting cards, offered as original art pieces. I like to turn them different ways to see what looks best. I really like this one right here with a little bit of texture in the middle. But then there's this one here that it accidentally made that fun mark when I put that on there real quick like. But, you know, this is a little quick project you could do in your studio with one color and a couple of neutrals and an accent color. And truthfully, the only reason I thought of the accent color is I looked outside. I saw the roses that were blooming on my daughter's rose bush and they're coral colored. And I thought, Oh, aren't those pretty? I thought, Hmm, wonder how coral would look on the green. And that's how creativity works. You see something, it spurs an idea in your brain and you just go with it. So these are some fun garden toned abstracts. But, you know, these are great. Let's look at the other sheet. Oh, and by the way, that leftover coral that was on that palette, real liquidy, I grabbed another sheet of watercolor paper, took a paper towel, got it on the paper towel to clean the palette, stamped it all on this sheet. So here's a good base sheet to start another sheet of abstracts or something else. Always always use the paint that's left on the palette on something. So this is the one I did before. I started the class with the same colors, but with some additional neutrals, the titan buff and raw umber and some Pain's gray in these. But these right here are the same as these right here. Same color choices, but they have a little bit more of the black in them. So see how different they can look just by altering the amount of one of the colors. Anyway, let's I just want to peel these so you can see how fun these are, too, I know they're gonna be great. Now, these are a lot smaller. They're little bitty little bitty squares. This peeling the tape part, I mean, seriously, I've been doing these every day here lately, just to break out of some non creative moments I've been having. So I've been doing these every day, and I have created all different colors and kinds of sheets, and I have no idea what I'm gonna do with them at this point, but, you know, the idea will hit at some point. Alright, I've got that side. Let's get this side. Sometimes it will pull the paper, the painter's tape will. And I think a lot depends on the paper, how hard you're pulling, how fast you're going. I tend to be a little bit impatient. So I like to go kind of quickly. Alright. Let's get this one. If I can I can get that one. Somewhere. I'll get it somehow. Oh, it frustrates me when it There we sort of got it. There. Now, see, I kind of tore the paper there. I got in a little bit of a hurry. And here, too. That's okay. And I won't use all of these for something, but I sure do save them. I have a little box. Sometimes I'll cut them apart. Right now I'm leaving them on sheets because I have some ideas for maybe mounting some of them as series as groups. And so I'm saving them on sheets rather than cutting them apart. So I have everything all kept together. There we go. Alright. Like you said, these two rows were done with the same colors here but with a little bit more black. And see, they look a little bit more dramatic. And then these had some additional neutrals, titan buff, raw umber, and pains gray. So I encourage you to play with whatever other neutrals you have. Even the neutral there's many gray shades out there in paints. So and there's other, you know, beige color shades as well. Now, I could I'm going to stop here with these because I like them and I don't know what direction I want to go, but I wanted to add that you can always continue on. There's no rules with these. This is to just experiment with color. Show that you don't need a whole lot of colors to make something nice and exciting and interesting. You just need a little bit of materials and a little bit of time. And it just totally frees up the creative mind when you do things like this. Because you're not trying to create any specific thing. You're just messing around with color. But yet you end up creating something very cool, very interesting, very unique. If you really like the way some of these come out, you can always take your color combination that you used on something like this and translate it to, say, a larger canvas or a larger sheet of paper. These are experiments to see what you might like, what you might enjoy, to maybe even show other people who might want a larger piece. And if they say, Oh, I really like something like this with this little bit of dark here. You can recreate that with these same colors on a larger surface if you want to. There's a lot of uses for what can be done with these. There's a lot more you can do with them if you want to. You can accent them with gold, use stamps and stencils, all kinds of stuff. But this class was just about using the one color with the two neutrals and the accent color. So that's what I've covered, and I hope that you have enjoyed watching these and seeing how these turn out and even seeing how the different shapes look. And that one right there I really like. Anyway, these are dry, so now I can move on to my next project. 8. THANK YOU: I want to thank you so much for taking this class, and I hope that you have really enjoyed watching what you can create with one color and a couple of neutrals and a tiny bit of accent of your choosing. I encourage you to do this kind of project just to loosen up when you get stuck, if you want to try out a new color and see how it works. This is a great way to do that and actually see that it can create something unique and interesting and different and all different sizes of it, too. And I also want to mention the using your leftover paint on your palette tip that I gave you to have some extra paper handy and use that paint up on that extra paper because now these papers can become the basis for the start of your next project. And I also wanted to show you another example of using these same colors with a couple of the other neutrals that I mentioned earlier, and a different accent color. So you can see the difference in how things turn out just by a couple different neutrals and a couple different accent colors. So I hope you have enjoyed the process, and you will join me for more of the classes in my tiny abstract series because I have a whole lot coming your way. Because I love these, I love to experiment with different materials and come up with different unique ideas in a small format. Small format art has always been my favorite why? Because people always have room for a small piece of art. So I like small format art. And I hope you do, too. I hope you've enjoyed this class and that you will join me in the future, for my other tiny abstract classes. Thank you again.