A large blue and red abstract art work featuring an eclectic style and subtle complimentary colours
Good lord, where do I even start? Amazing paint colours, huge textures, big painting. Read on…
200cm x 130cm (79″ x 51″)
Times Like These
£2500
Red and blue
It’s been quite a while since I did a blue and red abstract art work and back then (2011 I think?) it was a long thin painting with influences from the galaxies and stars.
Since then I have used those two colours in all kinds of combinations but never together and certainly not in the quantities of paint that I’ve used on this one. But I have to say that I am thrilled with the result and very glad I took the plunge at after all these years.
There are other colour used of course, and you can see them quite clearly, but the main focus of my attention was always blue and red. And in this painting it’s my faithful Swarez blue that’s most prominent (it’s my own unique colour by the way and exists nowhere else!).
The all important technique
I’m not going to make any secret about how I painted Swept Off My Feet; I used five different sizes of baking tin and loaded them with varying combinations of paint. I climbed onto my suspension rig (that’s one I’m keeping a secret but it suspends me over the canvas so I don’t have to reach) and poured out the paint.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? Perhaps you’d like to see the ones that didn’t go so well? Let me assure you that it is indeed easy to tilt your hand and watch paint pour out of a flat tray. Turning it into something you can call art, however, is another matter.
I have used this technique on a similar painting called Innocence Faded
The thought process behind it
The skill, experience and dexterity comes from understanding what it is you want to achieve in the first place. My objective was clear. A series of soft arcs, separate blue and red segments, a small selection of complimentary hints and some splash effects.
I wanted a strong, flowing movement and I wanted to be absolute with how much of the canvas I filled up. And as I was using a very new technique (for me at least) I was adamant in putting in as much detail as I could get.
Process and patience
There is nothing easy about using enamel paint. In fact it’s a tricky medium to work with for lots of different reasons. One of the biggest learning curves is the continual assessment of drying and curing times. 
Getting different paint effects can depend a lot on how long you leave between applications. This is important and I refer to it as ‘the skinning phase’. Or to put it another way, the time from when the paint goes on to when another layer can be put over the top without it affecting the paint it goes on to.
Sometimes I want it to merge and blend the paints and other times I don’t. Sometimes I may want a hybrid effect and have to look carefully again at what its doing. And each time I apply paint it’s different because of air – yes air!
It gets into the tin and dries out my paints every time I open a can. So each new paint session renders the paint a little thicker than before. Therefore I need to thin it again and that alters the curing time of the paint (again).
Add in other variables like air temperature, other chemical compounds and the amount of solvent flying around and you get a very unpredictable medium. So patience and process are key.
The finished piece
After all that malarkey and stress what you’re left with is a series of techniques that can help you produce the most insane and dramatic paint effects. In this painting that’s no exception.
There’s thick paint, thin paint and all kinds of coloured paint. There are hybrid mixes that go from light to dark and a myriad of subtly blended tones and twists that form from the primary colours; all adding a nice slant to this highly individual painting.
If having a blue and red abstract art work is something you have considered then drop me a line and I’ll help you consider it too – with some free Photoshop renders. That way you can see for yourself just how ridiculously good this painting is going to look.
And no, I’m not being a pretentious jerk when I say that because I have it hanging in my gallery underneath the skylights and it looks unreal. The layers, colours and textures are mesmerizing.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Materials
- Canvas: Polyester 320gsm
- Preparation: One coat of primer
- Paints: Enamel paint (9 colours) made to my own recipe
- Frame: 44mm Museum graded floating frame with 8 tensioning corner wedges.
- Hand-stretched and stapled on the reverse
