Just wanted to come on here to bring back our themed posts, starting with a quick Tips for Tuesday! While scrolling through tumblr, I found this painting of three dresses painted very messily and abstract. I found it so pretty and the fact that it's very abstract inspired me to create my own version of it. I tend to become very frustrated and stressed whenever I draw or paint, but recently I've been enjoying some abstract painting because of it's easy-going and open-ended nature.

This is a really easy style of painting to recreate, and I think even the most artslexic people can give it a go. I am nowhere near a professional artist, but I'm all for passing on the inspiration.

via Tumblr

To avoid my perfectionist tendencies, I went straight to painting the dresses instead of sketching it with a pencil, but you can sketch out some dress outlines if you prefer to do so. I used acrylic paint, though the ones I own do not dry textured like the one used above.

Some tips to recreate this style of painting:

• Try experimenting with the wetness of your brush. This type of painting specifically uses a brush with little excess of water, which will result in a messy look: colours not blending together seemlessly, broken and spotted strokes of paint, and build-up of paint resulting in bumps.
• Have a set of two paint colours for the base of each dress. Only two. This will limit your options and will keep the painting simple. Once both colours are on the canvas, a wet brush can be used to blend the two together to create a new colour, though accidental colour mixing is part of the style.
• Work with your mistakes. It's practically encouraged to make mistakes when abstract painting, so if you make one, then pretend it's supposed to be there.
• Use a limited amount of brush strokes. It adds to the messiness and lack of seamless colour blending. When you have a loaded brush, stroke just enough to get the paint on the canvas and move on.