If you’ve spent any time in the great outdoors, you’ll likely have noticed that it is a feats for the eyeballs. In fact, I would argue that every single artist is visually influenced by nature, whether through direct observation, or through the art and design they are influenced by.
Abstract Art Ideas: 10 Easy & Inspiring Projects
Abstract art allows artists to break free from traditional styles and express their creativity through colour, texture, and form.
These abstract art ideas cover all manner of mediums, regardless of whether you work with oil, acrylic, watercolour or ink. Let’s dive into these 10 abstract art ideas. Each details tips about materials and techniques required to bring your vision to life.
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Acrylic Pour Painting
When selecting materials for acrylic pour painting, consider using high-quality fluid acrylic paints such as Golden Fluid Acrylics to achieve more vibrant colours and better flow. Additionally, a few drops of silicone oil can be added to your paint mixture to create cells within your pour, giving the artwork a unique look. For your pouring medium, explore alternatives like Floetrol or Golden Pouring Medium, as each option may produce slightly different effects.
Acrylic paint is an excellent versatile medium for abstract geometric art. Depending on the mediums added, you can use it for different types of application. For instance, add high flow medium to create airbrush effects, or gel medium to create texture.
When planning your composition, sketch out various configurations of geometric shapes. Take cues from the works of artists like Piet Mondrian or Kazimir Malevich. They used grids, rectangles, and squares to create striking, minimalist designs. Alternatively, you can explore more organic or free form geometric shapes. This is reminiscent of the fluid curves and intersecting lines found in the paintings of Joan Miró or Victor Vasarely.
- Start by preparing your work area, as the splatter technique can be quite messy. Lay down a protective layer, such as a drop cloth or old newspapers, to catch any paint drips or splatters.
- Wet your watercolour paper with a spray bottle or brush. This will help the colours spread and blend more easily when applied.
- Load your brush with watercolour paint and flick it onto the wet paper, creating a splatter effect.
- Repeat with various colours, allowing them to bleed and blend together. Feel free to play with contrasting or complementary colour schemes to create interesting interactions between the hues.
- Let the painting dry completely before handling.
Blending Colours and Negative Space
Experimenting with colour blending can lead to fascinating and unexpected results in your watercolour splatter art. As the colours mix on the wet paper, they create unique combinations and gradients that add depth and interest to your composition.
To create negative space in your splatter painting, use masking tape or masking fluid. Apply the tape or fluid to the areas you want to protect from the paint splatter, creating geometric shapes, organic forms. Once the paint has dried, carefully remove the tape or peel off the masking fluid to reveal the clean, untouched areas beneath.
Tips for creating watercolour splatter effects
- If you’re new to watercolour splatter, practice on scrap paper before working on your final piece to get a feel for the technique and how different brushes produce different effects.
- Use high-quality watercolour paints and paper for the best results, as they will provide richer colours and better blending capabilities.
- Experiment with incorporating other elements into your splatter painting, such as ink, gouache, or acrylics, for added texture and visual interest.
String Pull Abstract Art
Gold leaf abstract art is a luxurious and eye-catching technique that adds a touch of elegance and sophistication to any artwork. Incorporating gold leaf into your abstract pieces can create a striking contrast between the vibrant colours and the shimmering metallic accents. You can add in on top of an existing watercolour, gouache or pencil artwork. Alternatively, you could coat a canvas with gold leaf, then paint over with acrylic or oil.
To create gold leaf abstract art, you will need a few essential materials, such as gold leaf sheets (imitation or genuine), gold leaf adhesive (also known as sizing), a soft brush, and a sealant like clear varnish or wax.
Start by creating an abstract composition using watercolour, experimenting with various colours, shapes, and techniques. Once your painting is complete and the paint has dried, you can begin incorporating gold leaf accents.
Drawing inspiration from the works of Wassily Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstract art and non-representational artworks, can lead to the creation of captivating and dynamic paintings. Kandinsky’s unique visual language incorporated free-flowing geometric shapes, bright colours, gradients, lines, and forms, resulting in expressive and emotionally evocative compositions.
To create an abstract painting in the style of Kandinsky, first familiarise yourself with his approach and techniques. Kandinsky was inspired by music and believed that colour and form could evoke emotions, much like the notes and chords of a symphony. He often used black lines and primary colours against light backgrounds, creating contrast and drama within his pieces. Although he primarily painted with oils, Kandinsky also employed soft pastels for expressive marks and added depth.
Using oil pastels, oil paints, or wax crayons, sketch your design onto the watercolour paper. These materials will serve as a ‘resist’ that prevents watercolour from adhering to the areas where they are applied. Be bold and expressive with your lines and shapes, ensuring that they are clearly defined and cover the desired areas completely. Or choose to create line art, drawing flowers, trees or intricate patterns.
Once your resist design is complete, it’s time to apply the watercolour paint. Begin painting over the entire surface of the paper, including the areas covered by the oil pastel. As you paint, you’ll notice that the watercolour resists adhering to the areas where the oil or wax has been applied, resulting in a striking contrast between the vibrant colours and the white or coloured lines of your resist design.
Consider using a limited colour palette to ensure harmony within your piece. Experiment with analogous or complementary colours, and explore different levels of saturation and transparency to achieve a visually engaging result.
If you painted with oils to create the resist, make sure to wait a few days before handling the artwork. Oils take much longer to dry than watercolour paints, so you will have to wait before framing the art.
Random Abstract Painting Ideas
Tape Resist
Paint a solid color or varied-colored background with acrylics. Let it dry, then add lines of painter’s tape in a design to act as a resist. Paint over the open areas, and peel the tape away to reveal a cool design. Alternative: use ripped pieces of tape instead of straight lines to get a totally different look.
Blob Flower
Mix up 4 paint colors, or use 4 colors straight from the tube if you love them. Have all 4 ready in jars or in piles on your palette. Starting from the center of your surface, Dab a blob of paint on, and dab out in petal-like blobs until you reach the edge of the painting surface. You can use your colors in a pattern or haphazardly.
Rough Stripes
Rip a thick piece of paper or thin cardboard lengthwise. Use it as a stencil to lay down on your painting surface and paint along the edge of to create stripes all over your surface. Let one color dry before you move onto the next.
Circle Resist Pattern
Paint the surface all one color. After it dries, stick circle stickers all over it and paint over them. Remove them to reveal a dot pattern, whether you make a uniform pattern or go all loose is up to you.
Monoprint Paintings
Remember potato prints? Carve a design into a potato, dry it off and brush acrylic paint on to use it as a stamp for your painting surface. Thin the paint a little bit with water or gel medium so it isn’t too thick and gloppy. Of course, you don’t have to use potatoes. Feel free to grab anything you can roll paint on and use as a stamp.
Color Blocks
Separate your surface into 3 differently-colored sections from top to bottom. When these dry, paint little shapes going across the separation lines where the colors meet. Ideas for shapes: circles, x’s, swirls, diamonds, cloud puffs.
Bullseye
Paint an organic bullseye. Get as colorful or muted as you like, and paint from the center out. Start by painting a small, organic shape in the center (think looking down form the sky at a lake). Paint around that with another color, and keep painting outward until you reach the edge of the canvas or board.
Abstract Landscape
Paint the idea of a landscape – meaning, paint a rough horizon line and loose brush strokes of “ground” and “sky” using any colors you like. Let the brush strokes and paint daubs guide you as you cover the canvas. Don’t paint over any of your brush strokes or try to blend anything.
Scrape Painting
This one is so much fun: Choose 3-5 colors of paint you like together and glop little blobs of them on your painting surface. Using an old credit card or the edge of a piece of cardboard, scrape over the paint blobs to spread them over the surface. play around with scraping straight, scraping wavy, etc. If you like, you can let this dry and then paint over the top as this can look sort of like a base layer of paint. Or: you can scrape the paint in quick, short scrapes, lifting the paint blobs up each time and placing them down on another area. Play around!
Sections
Draw intersecting lines all over your surface, either straight or slightly wavy, separating your surface into several shapes that you can then paint in. This will look like a really cool, abstract kind of patchwork quilt.
Intuitive Painting
Intuitive painting may just be the ultimate way to start abstract painting, and acrylics are perfect for this. What is intuitive painting? It’s like process painting for adults – grabbing your brushes and paints and going at the canvas in any way you see fit, purely for the experience. You are not concerned with outcome or anything, really, except tapping into your inner world to make marks on a canvas.
Doesn’t this sound lovely? You can do it yourself, but if you want a little guidance in the form of a class, check out Flora Bowley. She’s awesome.
Taking Photos For Abstract Painting Ideas
This is so fun, because it is sort of like an artist’s field trip. In fact, if you follow The Artist’s Way, you can use it as a fun artist’s date.
Visit several different locations and focus on keeping your eyes peeled for anything visually interesting. I used to walk around Providence in college doing this, and I would take snaps of trees, front doors, architectural details, mailboxes, etc.
Anything goes here, including shapes and patterns indoors or out. Don’t worry about looking like a nutball, you are 100% not the first person to be taking a photo of whatever it is you find. Ideas: town or city, public buildings, parks, grocery store, zoo, train station, mall, museum, old movie theater, nature center, amusement park.
