How To Create A 'Swirled' Abstract Painting With Acrylic Paint

If you are an abstract artist you can achieve some really beautiful results using watered-down acrylic paint. This is a technique that I have been using for a number of years and I have sold many paintings using this technique.

What you need:

• a canvas
• empty plastic (water) bottles
• acrylic paints
• masking tape
• spatula/icing spreader

So first of all you need to decide which colours you wish to use. You can check my article on basic colour theory if you wish to know which colours go best together. I tend to use colours that are close to each other on the color wheel (analogous hues).

Once you have decided this you need some empty plastic bottles in which to mix the paint. Mix the paint with water in an approximate 1:1 mix. Make up at least 5 different colours to give the painting some variety. It is a good idea to test the colours first on a spare canvas to check that they go well together. Have a good variety of contrasting depths of colour. You don't need to mix particularly large quantities of the paint but obviously it depends on the size of the canvas.

Once you have mixed the colours, put masking tape all around the edge of the canvas to form a lip which will stop the paint from running off the edges.

With the canvas flat on the ground or on a table, pour the paint onto the canvas in an approximate pattern of how you want it to look. Try and spread the paint around the canvas evenly. Once you have put all of the colours on the canvas, use a spatula or something similar to make sure all of the paint joins and that no canvas shows through. Make sure you do not put too much paint on the canvas or else it will take days to dry and may also crack off the canvas if it is too thick. At this point you can add some glitter or gold powder to the painting to give it an extra sparkle. In order to add more movement to the painting, slightly tilt the canvas to get some patterns into the paint. Keep tilting in various directions until you have a pattern you are happy with.

Once the paint is covering the whole canvas, leave the canvas to dry flat overnight. It depends upon how much paint you have used as to how long it takes to dry but if it takes more than 36 hours you have probably used too much! If you think there is too much paint on the canvas then literally tip it off or else use a syringe to take it off if you don't want to spoil the pattern, but you need to take the excess paint off before the paint starts to dry.

Once it is dry, remove the masking tape from the sides, paint the edges and varnish.