Work in Progress-Abstract Landscapes

I love abstract landscapes with their large blocks of color and loose painterly feel. In some of the books I've been reading lately I've noticed that many of the paintings I'm drawn to have an impressionist, painterly feel with soft edges, smoothly blended colors and a minimum of details. Easy to create....right? Well, I also noticed that many of those kinds of paintings are created using oil paints. Been there, done that...don't want to go back to the messy clean-up of oils. I have to figure out how to achieve the look I want with acrylic...which I mentioned in my previous post that I find them difficult to blend together because they dry so quickly.

So I thought I would practice my own abstract landscapes to see if I could figure out a technique to get the look I wanted. Well, I've read many times before that the key to acrylics is layer, layer, layer and I must admit that is true. My first layer of paint just looked horrible and I almost gave up too quickly. So the next day I tried adding a second layer of paint and it was starting to look more like what I had envisioned. So one more time I let the paint dry while I went to Kohl's and returned to add one more layer. Yes...this is what I was looking for and I may have just learned an important lesson. Patience and Perseverance pays off. Layering takes time but really adds depth to a painting.

On most days when it's time to clean up my painting mess for the day I have rarely painted anything I'm really happy with, but when I finished these two backgrounds I was dancing a happy dance. It's unfortunate that they were only painted on drawing paper in my art journal and the paper is kind of rippled from all the moisture. Now the hard part is adding something on top...I'm bound to screw them up!