5 Tips for Quick Abstract Flowers

This week, we paint quick abstract flowers freely without any references.

I have a black Dylusions Creative Journal and make small paintings there occasionally. It is especially good when there’s still paint left on the palette at the end of the painting session. I think it makes sense to use all the paint, and not throw the leftovers in the trash.

I don’t use any gesso but paint directly on the page.

When I painted pieces for the course Liberated Artist Revisited, I noticed that there had been a long break in acrylic painting and some of the tubes had started to harden.

It motivates me to paint in the black art journal again because I don’t want those paints to go to waste. And sometimes it’s nice to paint something small quickly and see what comes out most effortlessly.

Quick Abstract Flowers – Five Tips!

I like painting abstract flowers, and thick paints are very suitable for abstract flower paintings. Here are my five tips for painting flowers quickly.

1) Start from the Old Mess

The fastest way is to start from an old painting.

I have a lot of pages in my journal where I’ve hastily painted shapes with leftover paints.

Continuing the beautiful mess feels much more effortless than starting a new one from the beginning.

For example, here’s one page that still waits its turn to become a finished painting.

Most of my beginning messes are much more messy though!

2) Dark-Bright-Light

Include all three degrees of darkness in one painting.

Make color mixes and compare them in terms of darkness. By including all three – dark, bright, and light – you can achieve depth and atmosphere.

Make clear larger areas so that you can point to different places in the background and say, there is dark, there is bright, and there is light.

Flowers can have all three – dark, bright, and light colors.

3) Forget the Real Flowers!

Don’t think too much about the real flowers.

Don’t think about what a rose looks like or what flowers you want in your painting. All that stiffens your expression.

Focus on the colors and let the flowers form from the brushstrokes.

After all, a flower is just a few colorful strokes and a line for the stem.

Use your imagination when you look at your work in progress!

4) Leave Room for Spirit

Not everything needs to be defined or look like a flower.

Flowers are concrete matter, so let the colors express the spirit!

If you want to be extra quick, sharpen just one flower near the center and leave the others more abstract and vague.

5) No Forced Feelings

Open yourself up to an emotional experience.

The speed of the painting depends highly on how soon you get an emotional connection with yourself and what you are doing. Let even the darkest thoughts come. For creativity, everything genuine is equally good.

The beauty of making art is that imagination creates abundance and eternal life from almost nothing – from the leftover paint and leftover energy. And the more often you create, the more you get out of it!

Liberated Artist Revisited – Buy Now!

In Liberated Artist Revisited, we time-travel to meet the teacher – Paivi from 2015, and create new art with her.

This course is both for the left and right brain. The young Paivi gives systematic instructions while the older Paivi enjoys her freedom and ponders about art-making and life in general.

Liberated Artist Revisited is a limited edition – only available for purchase until the end of March 2024! >> Buy Now!