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My daughter asked me to paint her an abstract/impressionistic painting of some sailboats for a large wall in her house. I usually paint realistic, but have been wanting to try my hand at some abstract. I can say that it was a lot of fun! I think it's more fun to paint out of your head and make it up than to strictly follow a picture. I put on some smooth jazz music for inspiration and began to organize my table with all the colors she wanted in the painting. This was my work table when I started.
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The canvas size for each was 30" x 40". The first thing I did was use the acrylic gel medium and struck on some texture here and there on the canvas and let that dry. Then, I painted a base coat, using dark blue with some red and yellow mixed in to tone it down. I sprayed some water to let it drip and left it to dry.
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Using yellows and browns I put in the hints of rocks and started to lighten up the sky with light blue.
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Put in the clouds with white and each time also put the same colors into the water.
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Started in with the pinks, peaches, purples and coral colors. Whatever I put into the sky, I also put into the water. After each step, I let the canvas dry, sometimes using a hair dryer to speed up the process. I later redid the clouds as we didn't want them so puffy, so I smoothed them out.