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.

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.

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.