In this mixed media on canvas piece, I wanted to experiment with techniques of negative painting, painting an abstract background and of course I could not resist adding some patterns 🙂

You might also like: Online art class: Painting Flowers from imagination in mixed media

Here are the steps I took to paint this mixed media Flower painting:

I started by selecting a few fluid acrylic ink paint bottles, I actually ended up using only the blue and green. I also used liquid matte medium.

For this pouring technique, start by applying the fluid medium all over the painting with a knife or any other flat tool like a spatula.

Then add some drops of fluid acrylic on top of the liquid gel.

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Liquitex Acrylic Mediums Gel mediums are ideal for extending a heavy body paint, to create impasto, relief, or sculptural effects. – Gel Medium, Gloss

Here I used only blue and yellow fluid acrylic.

Then using the painting knife, I did spread the paint and medium around, this process allow very nice textures to form on the canvas.

I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.

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Golden High Flow Acrylics

Incredibly flexible, Golden High Flow Acrylics have an ink-like consistency that lends itself to a wide range of techniques painting, drawing, staining, glazing, inking, hand-lettering, airbrushing, and more. – High Flow Colors, Set of 10

Once dried, the canvas looked like this. Now I looked at the canvas and tried to make out shapes from the abstract patterns. I decided to go for a flower theme.

After quickly outlining the shapes, I painted around them with white acrylic.

When all the negative white painting has been done,  the painting looks like this. Basically a few flowers, a vase and I was thinking the shapes on the right could be leaves. I find that I would need an extra leave on the left for balance and am scrubbing off a bit of the white background with alcohol and a stiff brush to add that extra leave.

To make the vase different from the flowers, I am painting it with a layer of blue acrylic, the nice thing about acrylic paint is that it will most of the time be a bit translucent, so some of the patterns will still show on the vase under the blue paint.

As my painting process often involves working in many successive layers, I decide to add some color to the background to work on another layer.

I am adding texture to that yellow layer by spraying some alcohol.

Alcohol textures.

I am adding patterns on the yellow painted background with a blue marker.

Then I am going to use an oil based white sharpie to add more designs and definition to the flowers and the vase.

I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.

Sharpie Oil-Based Paint Markers, White, Medium Point Sharpie Oil-Based Paint Markers are great for touching up wood and metal, personalizing belongings, or adding pizzazz to school projects. Decorate and add accents to a variety of items, even non-porous materials such as glassware and terracotta.

I decide to change the leaves shapes into small flowers.

Last step is another negative painting in white of the background but this time I am painting around the new designs I just added.

Finally I am adding a bit more designs with the blue marker on top of the newly painted white background. I like the semi abstract quality of the finished painting.

Green Bouquet
Mixed media on canvas
12 x 12 inches
original is sold- prints available here