Ellipse

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 12 x 16 inch canvas 

Here's another experiment that started with black gesso followed by applications of white through stencils and Fineline applicator. I didn't try to preserve the white lines of the elliptical shapes when I glazed the color on top. I debated coming back with the Fineline applicator to bring back the white but decided against it.

April showers bring May flowers

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 12 inch canvas

Today's painting is an experiment that started with a bottom layer of black gesso followed by a stenciled application of white gesso. .I made one of the stencils with a glue gun. The remaining layers were done with glazes of fluid acrylics as well as outlines of high flow titanium white via a Fineline applicator.

Rainy day blues (and greens and purples)

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 12 x 16 inch canvas 

Here's another painting that started with fine lines of high flow acrylics. After I started scribbling with the Fineline applicators I splashed the canvas randomly with water and let the acrylic bleed. Today I finished it off with glazes of phthalo blue green shade, phthalo green blue shade and dioxazine purple.

TGIF

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 12 x 16 inch canvas 

Just finished another painting - drops of high flow acrylic paint, spritz of water and fineline scribbles with more high flow acrylics. Followed up with glazes of fluid acrylic.

RIP Prince

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic and gess on 12 x 12 inch canvas 

This isn't the painting I planned on working on today, but often life just messes with your plans. Minnesota, the United States and the world have lost a great musical talent, a true artist, today. It's left me feeling a little blue. Prince Rogers Nelson, AKA Prince, was only 57, way too young. This is my tribute.

Even if you weren't a fan of his music, there's no denying his musical genius. Take a look at how he steals the show in this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps:

Making improvements

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 18 X 24 inch canvas 

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 18 X 24 inch canvas 

These two paintings were originally painted a couple years ago, early in my acrylic painting 'career'. They have been propped up in my living room ever since, waiting for me to hang them. I was pretty happy with them when I painted them, but the longer I had them, the more convinced I became that I could improve them. So today I pull out the glazing liquid and some fluid acrylics and went to work adding some more highlights and enhancing the color with transparent glazes.

Here are the originals:

http://vlchristensenpainting.blogspot.com/2014/09/autumn-is-in-air.html
http://vlchristensenpainting.blogspot.com/2014/08/up-in-trees.html

Easter egg hunt

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 14 x 18 inch canvas 

Today's painting started out with scribbles of high flow acrylics on a damp canvas. On subsequent layers I glazed fluid acrylics into the ovals, making my color choices based on the colors in the underpainting. I ended up liking the unpainted areas but it didn't seem right to leave it that way so I went with a translucent glaze of white with a slight hint of manganese blue that I painted around and between the colorful ovals.

Broken glass

Abstract painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 14 X 18 inch canvas

I liked using the Fineline applicators so much I ordered some more and put them to work in this painting. I spritzed the canvas with water before starting to draw with phthalo blue, turquoise phthalo and yellow high flow paints. The damp canvas caused the high flow paints to flow and bleed. I followed up with transparent glazes of phthalo blue and quinacridone nickel azo gold, then lightened up some of the painting with a translucent white glaze.

The last of the string gel (at least for a while)

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic paint and mediums on 14 x 18 inch canvas 

This is the last string gel painting experiment I had in progress. I admit I was kind of at a loss how to finish it. If it wasn't for the texture I probably would have added some light glazes to rein in the color.

String gel and dripped paint

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic paint and mediums on 14 x 18 inch canvas 

I finished one of the string gel paintings I was working on. This one started with the string gel on a white gessoed canvas. The underpainting is diluted paint dripped from a pipette.

Fine lines, drips and drops

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 14 x 18 inch canvas 

Here's another painting that started with lots of black lines. I'm loving the Fineline applicator. I also started a couple string gel paintings today.

String gel texture

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic paint and mediums on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel 

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic paint and mediums on 12 x 12 inch canvas 

Today's paintings have been in the works for a few days due to the drying time between layers. This is another experiment based on examples I found in Jo Toye's book, Abstract Explorations in Acrylic Painting. I primed the surface with black gesso, let it dry thoroughly then drizzled on Liquitex string gel. Toye's book suggested using Golden clear tar gel, but I already had the Liquitex gel, a similar product. After letting the gel dry the next step is to paint white gesso on and quickly scrape it away to leave the black showing through the raised texture of the clear gel. You can use a credit card  (an expired one :) ). I used a Catalyst silicone wedge.

After scraping the white gesso I ĺet the canvases dry for another day.  Today I painted with transparent fluid acrylics thinned with a little glazing liquid. I really like the effects and look forward to using this technique again.

Black, white and a lot of glaze

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 x 20 inch canvas

After a couple days of coughing and sneezing (AKA common cold) I felt like painting again. I did a little work on a couple experimental painting and set them aside to dry then finished today's painting. This is another one that began with black high flow acrylic and a Fineline applicator. The final layer was glazes of various colors. I found another excuse to use my favorite manganese blue hue and quinacridone nickel azo gold. Other colors used: quinacridone magenta, anthraquinone blue and green gold (all Golden fluid acrylics).

Gesso pulling

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel 

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel 

I'm still experimenting with techniques from Jo Toye's book, Abstract Explorations in Acrylic Painting. Today I finished a couple that use the 'gesso pulling' technique. This involves starting with swatches of fluid paint, then dragging white gesso down from the wet paint swatches. The final layers include glaze and scribbles of high flow acrylics.