BEGINNER ABSTRACT ART: How to Create a Textured Painting

How to Paint with Acrylics – Create a Textured Abstract Art Painting Using Texture Mediums

6 SIMPLE STEPS TO CREATE A TEXTURED ABSTRACT PAINTING:

1. Prep your canvas: In this tutorial, I use modeling paste to create an ultra-smooth finish, but you can use several coats of Titanium White to get a nice, smooth prepped canvas (2-3 coats).
   
2. Lay down your texture with a palette knife.
   
3. Use another type of texture over the last. Let dry thoroughly.
   
4. Apply paint in layers using light coats. Let each layer dry thoroughly.
   
5. When background layers are dry (and finished), use a flat brush to lightly apply color over portions of the textured regions. Let dry.
   
6. Apply a final “glaze coat” over your finished artwork. Let dry. Varnish, if desired.
   
   

PAINTING STEP-BY-STEP

TRANSCRIPT of VIDEO:

To get started this is what I’m going to be using. I’m going to use a flat acrylic canvas board. This one I just got from Blick and it’s 16 x 20, this is covered with canvas. I’m going to put a nice finish on this so we get a really nice smooth finish before I apply the top texture.

Get started:

These are some of the paints that I’m going to use right here. This is a metallic turquoise; I’m going to use a gold paint and a bronze. Also, for the blues, I’m using the Phthalo blue green shade and then the Phthalo Turquoise and these are liquids, which are lovely to work with. And here’s another bronze paint that I’ll be working with. I have a palette knife and a couple of flat brushes and this is what I’m going to use to create this painting more or less.

NOTE: The ARTEZA metallic set will cover you – great options for metallic paint. Very buttery and easy to use!

PAINTS USED TO CREATE “BRONZED EARTH”

Metallic Turquoise – I used a different one, but this one looks even better

Metallic Gold (this is my go-to gold paint – soft body acrylic)

Metallic Bronze – this one is excellent and my favorite bronze

Phthalo Turquoise – this is the one I use – excellent pigment/color

Phthalo Blue (Green) – be careful choosing a Phthalo – some are not quite true and not really a good option. This one is the best.

TEXTURE / MEDIUMS I USED:

Extra Heavy Gel – Use a semi-gloss or matte version like this one

Modeling Paste – not flexible like heavy gel; only use pastes on stretched/solid surfaces

Acrylic Glazing Medium – SATIN / GLOSS

We’re going to get started applying a really nice surface on to this canvas board. And I’m using a modeling paste and I’m going to be using, for the other texture, an extra heavy gel. And this is what’s going to give you a really nice surface texture.

CREATING AN ULTRA-SMOOTH FINISH WITH MODELING PASTE

For the modeling paste, I’m going to mix a little up with some water and I just have this in a plastic container and I’m going to mix it up like that. And, what I’m going to do is I’m going to add some white paint to that and this is going to give us a really nice kind of white surface texture. And that’s okay if I splash like that because I’m going to go right over it.

It doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth, kind of mixing up sort of a very light kind of batter, if you will. Clean this up like this. It’s going to look kind of like–it will be a little lumpy, kind of like a pancake batter. And we’re just going to put this down on our surface.

USE TITANIUM WHITE IN MULTIPLE COATS FOR SIMILAR EFFECT (NOT QUITE AS SMOOTH)

Now you can create the same kind of surface texture, just by doing multiple coats of white, like a titanium white, which is what I used right here, just a basic, inexpensive white is really great.

This dries to a matte finish, semi-matte anyway. But since I added that modeling paste, the very light modeling paste–and there are different degrees of modeling paste. There’s the heavy gel, there’s a light modeling paste and various textures that you can use. I just want to get a really nice smooth texture on this.

LET DRY THOROUGHLY

Then we’re going to let this dry and then we’re going to go back and apply our heavier texture on the surface. Now, after you apply your heavier texture, you’re going to want to let that dry for a minimum of 24 hours. A lot of times if I’m doing a large painting with a lot of texture I’ll let it dry for a week or so and then come back and work on it, because I want to make sure that those textures are all set.

Some of the textures like crackle paste and some of the fiber textures, they take a little longer to really dry and give you the final finish.

The crackle paste is kind of a cool thing to use because as it dries it form cracks in the surface and I use that a lot with some of these other textures and it creates a really interesting final result that’s pretty cool, a very organic texture.

I’m just going to go around the edges. Since this is so thin of a board, I don’t really need to worry about that so much. But I’m going to lay this down, go back over it until you have a real nice smooth finish. Sometimes little hairs will pick up.

We’re going to let this dry and I’ll come back and I’m going to probably put another coat of this on since I have more mixed up and I can get a really nice hard, smooth finish with that. But we’re just going to let this dry for about a minimum of couple of hours, sometimes you can let it dry overnight, whatever.

I put two coats of that modeling paste and white and a little bit of water in a container, mixed it up and then just used a flat brush and put it down. I have put two coats of it on there, so we have a really nice smooth finish and I let it dry. Now we’re going to apply the more heavy texture that I was to put on this painting. For that I’m going to use the modeling paste and then I’m also going to use a little bit of the extra heavy gel.

The modeling paste, I work with a palette knife. I’m just going to take some out. It’s kind of like a thick frosting, so any of you bakers out there know. Put some on my palette, which is just an upside down paper plate. See how it has such a nice thick texture? It leaves a lot of really pretty marks and grooves if you use a palette knife.

USE A PALETTE KNIFE, NOT A BRUSH

Don’t use a brush with this because it’s going to be really hard to use a brush with this because it is so thick. So you can use a plastic spoon, you can use a knife, you can use any kind of tool like that, but that’s going to give you the best effect, the best look, so that’s really what we’re after.

I’m going to scoop that off. I’m going to work upside here, but then I’ll turn it around so you can see exactly what it is that I’ve done. And you just kind of want to lay it down like that in kind of a stairstep pattern. Just kind of go around with it.

USING TEXTURE PASTE IN DIFFERENT WAYS – IT DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE “TEXTURE”

It creates such a cool finish that you can kind of play around and see where all you want to have your texture on your painting. And take a little bit more out, put a little bit up here, maybe a little wider.

And that’s really the trick to working with textures is you want to do them so they’re not always perfect. And by that I mean you just kind of want to put down different textures, like this one I’m going to lay kind of sideways and go down and leave it a little bit thicker like that.

VERY SMOOTH SURFACE

So, here we have a different smooth look. And you can go on while it’s still wet, and this definitely takes about 24 hours, 48 hours to dry.

If you use the heavier textures, like I explained before, you’re going to let them dry for several days in between painting and putting texture on. I like to just kind of lay some drops here and there, go back smooth them out and see where I want to get a finish that I know will become cool when it dries and paint over it.

I like some pieces to be real nice and thick, like this side’s going to be right here. And then some thinner, mess it up a little bit so it’s not so perfect. Maybe a little over here. This is going to be more or less a painting that has a lot of stuff on the top and it’s going to kind of cascade down as we go and move kind of up to the top.

As you can see, it’s not difficult. You kind of have to use your eye to have a little forethought on what it’s going to look like when it’s dry and where the paint is going to apply. That’s really the thing because once you put texture down, it’s down.

WITH TEXTURE, WHEN IT’S DRY, IT’S FINAL

You can’t–unless you apply a super heavy coat over it to smooth it out again, it’s not like paint where if there’s just paint down you can over with Gesso or Titanium white or something and create a whole new painting. But with texture, texture’s down, that’s it.

So you want to do it right the first time. And you have time to work with this before it dries, like I said, so be afraid to scoop it off and put it down somewhere else if you think you’re not quite sure about how something looks.

CREATE BALANCE IN YOUR ART

I like to create sort of a balance in my paintings. And by that I mean not a complete 100% texture here and exactly here, but a balance. So, if this has something up high, then this is going to have something up high but not exactly the same, just so the eye has that sort of same balance look. So, if I put texture over here, I’m going to put some over here, but it’s going to be a little different, it’s going to be laid down differently just to create a little bit of a balance on this. And this I’m going to–I want just a little different look here.

So you can see how I’m laying that all down and the way that it’s looking. I want to flatten that down a bit. Sometimes if you have things sticking up too much with the texture after it dries, the little nubs will kind of break off and you don’t want that.

CREATE TEXTURE BUT NOT FLIMSY PEAKS

Make sure you don’t have anything really built up super high, unless you’re going for that look, more sculptural look, but, just be away that they can break off a little more easily. I think that’s good. We have some good balance over here, we have some texture over here, down here. I don’t want everything to be too perfect, so when I switch it around you can take a quick look at that and how I’ve done it and laid it down.

I’ve just used a palette knife and the modeling paste and that’s all I’m going to put down, I think, on this one right now.

I don’t think I’m going to use any of the extra heavy gel after all because I got the effect, I wanted with this. And so, some of the large paintings that I do, I might go back with a little of the extra heavy gel and put some down because there’s more surface to cover and I want to build it up a little more, but this is good for where I want to be with this painting.

Let it dry and then we’ll come back. I’m going to let it dry for at least 24 to 48 hours to get a good cure. Then we’ll go ahead and lay down some of our colors and washes of colors.

That was the modeling paste and it’s kind of a medium weight modeling paste, there’s all kinds out there. You can buy different brands and different weights and different textures and things like that. This is just a smooth texture modeling paste.

DRIED 24 HOURS

We’re back 24 hours later and we’ve let our texture medium dry really well, so it has a really nice finish. Again, you can wait a couple of days, or if you live in a humid climate it make take a little longer to dry thoroughly, I live in a dry climate so things dry pretty well overnight.

WHEN DRY, LAY DOWN YOUR COLOR

What I’m going to do now is lay down some color. The best way that I like to get color that has a translucency and sort of a luminosity to it is to use a series of light coats with a glazing medium.

The glazing mediums I use are these right here. I use the satin and then a little bit of the gloss. Sometimes I use a little more gloss, for this one I’m going to use a little more satin. I do a mix of those two with a little water and a little pain and then I just lay down several coats of that.

I’ll show you how I do that right now, it’s pretty simple. In a container, anything, I like to recycle plastic containers and use them. I’m going to pour a little bit, this is the satin and a little bit of the gloss. I’m going to put in a little bit of water, just a little bit, just to thin it out just a bit.

Then I’ve laid down some colors on my palette here and these are what I’m going to be using right now for layers. This is a Phthalo Green/Blue shade, this is a Bronze, This is a Metallic Turquoise and then this is a Phthalo Turquoise and I’ll show you each of those.

This is the metallic turquoise that I’m using just a bit of, the bronze, again, is the Golden Liquid Bronze and then also the Phthalo blue and the Phthalo turquoise. I know these are quite used so, I think you can see the labels and get the idea. Again, you can use any brand you like.

PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTS = ARCHIVAL QUALITY

You don’t need to work with expensive products when you are just learning.

I like to create art with archival products, the Golden and Liquid and some of those are definitely higher end professional, they’re more expensive. But if you’re going to create art to sell and create archival art, art that lasts, you’re going to have to use higher end products like that.

If you’re just doing crafts or playing around and painting and creating you can use much cheaper products. These are more expensive. These are what I use for all of my paintings because I want them to last. Again, we’ve got two of the glazing liquids in here, a little bit of water.

I have a little bit of the turquoise on my brush and I’m going to mix that and see where I land, it’s kind of a green blue. I wanted a little more blue, so I’m going to pick up a little bit of blue and mix that in. I’m using a brush because I like mixing with a brush, I should use a knife, sometimes I do if it’s a little thicker. But this gives me a really good idea of what I’m going to get.

LAYER ONE

This is kind of where I want to be with my first layer. I’m going to pick up just a little bit of the bronze and mix that in because that’s going to give me a little bit of an undertone, a shimmer and a little depth to my undertone.

And then when you come on top of it and you decide you want it a little brighter, then you can do subsequent layers a little bit brighter. I just kind of mix until I know where I’m at with that. You can make it more blue, more green, more whatever, this is just what I’m doing for this.

I wet my brush. Again, I’m using a flat brush. And I’m going to go over this entire painting more or less with this here. I like to give my paintings a little bit of a light mist before I start just because if it’s too dry, it’s going to grab color in certain areas that you may not want it to. If you wet it just a little bit and not too much, then it goes on a little smoother.

This is just basic painting here. This is laying down your first coat which is going to give your painting a little more depth. You can do it just this much and then come back and lay down a little more blue on it and that’s going to be a little more green in areas, a little more blue in areas if you do it this way. If you want the entire thing, it’s a little more uniform, but sometimes you don’t want that, sometimes you want certain areas to kind of be a little more of one color.

CREATING TRANSLUCENCY

That’s where the translucency comes through when using glazes, this is going to be a more thinned out color because we used the glazing liquid, that’s why you lay down subsequent layers with this.

I’m going to bring it up here a little bit more because I’m going to back over this with a much more blue layer eventually and then of course our bronze on top as you’re going to see with the final painting. That’s going to bring all the colors kind of up from the bottom and that’s what creates the translucency and not just one flat all over color. Which is perfectly fine for some paintings, but that’s not what I’m going for with this.

PIGMENT/COLOR + GLAZE = TRANSLUCENCY

I want this to be a real sort of translucent painting where different colors come up in different areas. And I want it to be smooth edges so I don’t want any hard lines here. Okay, so that’s where I’m at with this layer, that’s going to give us a little bit of a nice depth underneath.

You can see how the texture is kind of picking up some color here and that’s going to look really cool when we get to the top texture. I love working with texture, as you can tell if you’ve seen any of my art. I just want a little bit of depth down in here. Sometimes you have to use a really light stroke just to kind of smooth things out. I think that’s about where we’re going to be with this one.

As you can see, it looks very unfinished, but that’s our first layer. Again, I just mixed the glazing liquids, a little bit of paint, a little bit of water, mixed it up and I’m just laying down a real nice first layer.

Then as I use this again, I’m just going to put a plastic lid on top of it so it stays good overnight. Sometimes I’ll spray a little water in there and then when I come back, I can just add to it and I still have that base of color, if you want to do that, if not, you can always start fresh. That’s all I’m going to do today.

LET EACH LAYER DRY VERY WELL.

We’ll come back and once this is dry then we’re going to put another layer on it. It’s going to be a little more blue because this is a little more green. But again, it’s just going to be our underneath layer.

We have let that paint layer dry thoroughly, so we are ready to add another layer. In this layer, as I said, I’m going to add a little more blue. So, I’ve added a little more gloss glaze because I want this layer to be a little glossier than the last one.

I’ve just added gloss glaze to what we were working with yesterday and I’m mixing that up. I’m going to pick up a little more blue, the Phthalo Blue on this layer, just a touch of the Phthalo turquoise for my palette, which I put over night in a plastic bag so it stayed usable. I might put a little more. Let’s see, this one is going to be a little bluer. It’s a good starting mix. I’ll get my brush, a little water on my brush and mix it around.

ANOTHER LAYER!

We’re just going to add the next layer all over. This one I’m going to cover all of it because I want a little more blue everywhere. Working quickly because acrylics dry super fast and if you don’t get it down quite right and it dries it can give you a little bit different intended end than what you thought you wanted. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not. Get that all down.

As you can see, I’m getting not the most perfectly uniform here, but that’s what I want because when you work with glazes they’re very, very thin so everything kind of reads up from underneath.

This one looks a lot more blue. There we go. I’m just going to try to get this done as quickly as possible. I probably will put on at least one more layer of paint after this one, just to get a really good base layer before I go ahead and finish off with my bronze at the top.

DON’T LIKE BLUE AND GOLD?

You could do this painting in a lot of different colors. You could do it in grays with a real pretty silver metallic at the top, you could bronze with a much more gold metallic at the top. This is just the sort of technique of this painting.

Now we’re got our canvas covered. And again, I like to go through with a real light stroke on my final layer just to kind of make sure everything is kind of–I’m not really even holding this, I’m kind of just let the brush fall and when it hits the canvas real lightly, it smooths everything out real nicely without giving me any real brush strokes, a little bit but not too much.

There you can see I’ve now–we have quite a different look here. We’ve got a lot of depth coming through in this area. It’s a little more blue here, a little more green and turquoise. I’ve got a little depth down in here and these are all the things that you build up when you work with these glazes that you have underneath. You can even just lay a little bit of the paint like I just did, down in certain areas just to make a little darker or a little more true color in that area.

These are all just little things that you can do to play around with to get an idea of what the paint does, what the mediums do, how it reacts, how to manipulate it so that you get the result that you want.

TRIAL AND ERROR:

A lot of it is, until you’ve done it several times, it’s like trial and error. It’s like anything, you try it and you see what works for you. When you do it enough then you kind of have a little more control over what exactly your final outcome is going to be. It’s not as much trial and error, you can pretty much guide it.

That’s about it for this layer. I’m going to let this dry really well. Got some good blues and greens and turquoises and colors on here, so it’s going to have a nice kind of look of various colors, which is really what I’m going for.

The next layer, I’m going to make just a little more of a glossy and a little thicker paint just to really give it that final finish before we finish up and do the texture on the top. We’re going to let this dry thoroughly and they we’ll come back and do that.

Mix your glazes to apply a final “glaze” over the dried art. This will give it a nice, lustrous finish. This is not in place of a varnish – you still need to varnish over this (dry) layer for archival finish.

GLAZE THE FINAL ARTWORK:

I mix the glazes in a ratio:

3/4 SATIN + 1/4 GLOSS

Apply the mix over the entire surface with a flat brush. Let dry. Varnish, if desired.

Learn to paint like a pro!

Acrylic art tutorials | Step-by-step video classes

How to paint with acrylics like a professional | Pro-level art tips and techniqes | Art tutorials for beginners | Beginner to Intermediate Art Classes Online | Video Acrylic Painting Tutorials | Easy Art Paintings | How to Paint Abstract Art | Modern Art Painting Class | 101artists.com

Art classes taught by KR Moehr, Artist
https://www.abstractart.live