Impasto Paint Playday Practice

Hi Everyone!

I know many of you sometimes struggle feeling you 'need' to create a masterpiece every time and feel overwhelmed browsing the internet rabbit hole filled with stunning artworks. Am I close? ;)

Well, today Kassa comes to the rescue! ;) Her creations are always expressions of pure joy and today she's also sharing a project that is a wonderful encouragement to experiment, enjoy the creative process itself, forget about the result for a while and simply Have Fun! :)

*   *   *   *

Hi there lovely friends, so happy to be back and sharing a little of my art with you all.

I'm back in with a step by step following on from my last month's post about Finnabair's amazing paint systems.

Today I'm using the new Impasto Paints and actually I call what I created a practice exercise because that's how it started out - as a simple exercise.

Basically, I get the urge to apply paint to brush to paper and to not have a care in the world, just sit down with artist quality watercolor paper, my paints, brushes and a little water and paint.

I explore how I can manipulate, spread, merge, layer the colors and make the most beautiful shapes.

I love to practise, they say practice makes perfect which in my art I don't believe this to be true, but I do believe it helps me stretch my potential, find different and exciting techniques and cools my brain or feeds my soul depending how high or low my mood is.

Plus, bonus, if I don't immediately turn the practice pieces into art, I have fabulous colorful backgrounds ready for a rainy day! :)

Step 1

I take a soft pencil and draw a shape to paint, in this case circles (my fave shape).

Using my paintbrush I flood the 1st area to be painted with clean water and gently touch the flood water with a paintbrush loaded with watered down Impasto Paint.

The paint quickly spreads from the paintbrush into the water. I carefully keep adding the color till I'm happy with how rich and dense my color is.

Step 2

I fill in any areas within my circles that don't touch, like in this case every other segment.

When dry, I start to colorise the leftover segments, starting the whole process again, flooding and filling in the circle with beautiful color.

Step 3

I randomly drop rock salt into the wet puddles of paint and leave to dry naturally before removing the salt.

This technique helps you create lovely bleach like effects as some of the paint is sucked up by the salt.

Also I dab up paint randomly with a paper towel and drop drips of clear water into the paint which creates cool watermarks.

Step 4

For the background I wanted a soft, washed out, pastel look. The easiest way I found was to draw circles with my clean water paintbrush (one or 2 at  time) and add the watered down Impasto Paint in a circular motion into the clean water circles.

Step 5

Wait for 30 seconds or so for the paint to take hold, then gently blot with a paper towel - this soaks up the excess color and water leaving behind a soft pastel circle.

Smooth the shape out with a clean wet brush, add a touch more color if necessary and drop a few drips of clean water into the circles to create those watermarks.

Step 6

After doodling the colorwheels with a black waterproof journal pen I cut them all out and adhered to my background with Soft Matte Gel Medium.

I just needed an edgy and cool finishing touch - Mechanicals Mini Hardware are perfect for that!

Some splatters with slightly watered down Snow White and Pitch Black Impasto paints and not forgetting I to add some more splattering with Art Alchemy Metallique Silver Spoon around the Mini Hardware.

I was nearly finished, I just couldn't resist a few scribbles on the wheels with my Gelatos!

I highly recommend a chilled practice session, an art playday just for you.

Remember there are no rights or wrongs, just an explosion of color fun and discovering and loving new techniques along the way...

I hope you will you put on your apron and join me for a painty play-day!

Thanks my lovelies,

Kassa mwah xoxo

Products used: