Large Abstract Painting Technique

So I decided to take a two day workshop with Tony Tozer on large contemporary painting.  I got myself two very large canvasses and headed off for the day with my arty mate Margie. It was at a great arts centre where they run heaps of workshops. No air con though and the temperature reached 38C that day. I was a tad sticky I can tell you.

So the idea is to free up your work and create some abstract paintings. Tony told us that we would need to tear some newspaper into pieces and lay them on our canvas.

so once we had done that we were to choose a colour and begin to paint very lightly with a light wash over the newspaper.

Like this...

and this...

These were my two

Once you had done that the idea was to then put some more layers over the top in areas that you needed to keep and leave areas you wanted to fill in  more blank then paint over again the paper again.

So you end up working with just shape and colour. I found this quite difficult. To let the painting be about just that and I think mine ended up as soemthing to do with the beach. I find i have to have soemthing semi recognisable in my work.

The idea was a good one and removes some of the desire of the artist for control and that tightness that we dont want in a painting of an abstract nature.

these were the same paintings after that stage

this one above he really liked and wanted me to leave it as it is. Personally I think It needs a bit more work so I will probably do more on it.

I like the blue sort of waterfally bit in the middle and the orange peeping through on the top right, but i want to change the mid orange square and the blue on top left.

I kind of liked  this one and it is pretty large but still think it needs more work.

Anyway thought I would share this workshop technique with you all it was heaps of fun and really go tme back into the mood to paint.