From My Imagination…

I’ve been messing around with some acrylic paint on a small canvas board, trying to make an abstract landscape from my imagination. I always work from life, I’m way out of my comfort zone doing this, but I’m persevering because I feel I need to loosen up and just try things out without being precious. I’ve been following the development of the work of artists Aletha Kuschan and Fran Williams and they inspired me to improvise.

I started by just laying a few lines across the board in charcoal, not being too fussy what I was doing, then I coloured in the shapes, like I did as a kid. Then I layered on textures, a bit like van Gogh. I used a dry brush and a rag to rub white paint over areas of it, to knock the colour back. And finally, I rubbed in some metallic paints with a rag, to give some of the sections a lift (top image).