In June 2012 I started painting using acrylics. In two months I had produced over 500 A4 & A3 pictures - and I didn't stop there.

 

These pages contain selected highlights from my collection of A4 pictures.

 

--

 

I've wanted to paint for a long time. I tried using watercolour but didn't get very far. Then I thought that maybe I'd have more luck with acrylic.

 

So I bought an acrylic starter kit and sat down to paint.

 

I decided on two rules :

 

1 - Fill the paper

2 - There are no more rules

 

The second of these rules freed me from the constraint of having to accurately reproduce in form and colour a flower, a landscape or a building - something which I found frustrating during my brief attempts to paint using watercolours many years earlier. This freedom led me to produce hundreds of pictures. There's quite a lot of experimentation along the way so there are no claims of artistic merit. But it's been great fun discovering, experimenting and playing with colour and technique.

 

Looking back, early pictures often attempted to reproduce something familiar. Many were time consuming and frustrating to do. More recent pictures are entirely abstract. Now I paint very quickly, letting the mind and brush flow freely around the paper. Many pictures are done in under 5 minutes. I don't clean the brush between pictures, I don't clean the water and I often use colours already on the palette from the last picture. Sometimes the paint is mixed directly on the paper as I go. I like the way this randomness allows completely new discoveries of colour and shape.

 

Very few of the pictures are planned - they are discovered. The first stroke of the brush sets the scene for those that follow and the picture evolves from there. The mind is not passive in this process, it's completely absorbed. There are constant decisions to be made - what to add, what to take away and crucially, is it finished?

 

As well a using brushes I've also applied paint with a sponge, kitchen towel, cookie cutters, the edge of a CD, a ruler, corrugated paper, glue spreader and a credit card. I'm always on the lookout for new shapes and textures, but so far I haven't used my fingers.

 

Initially I'm painting just for fun, but the overall aim is to discover a style that I'm comfortable with that can produce something worthy of a canvas.

 

I think I've discovered a great way to start painting. It's a very low cost method too as I use A4 paper and never waste paint.

 

Plus, it's very therapeutic to just let it flow and see where it goes.

 

I enjoy the Serendipity of this creative process.