Abstract Texture Painting -- The Final Version

Several posts ago, I showed you the blank textured canvas that I prepared using Dap Dry Dex.  Well, now I want to show you what happened to that canvas.  I'm not very good at taking pictures of intermediate steps.  I get caught up in the painting and I definitely get very messy while I'm at it so I'll just have to explain what went on.

I added some drywall webbing tape to the canvas to add to the crosshatching that I'd done to certain areas.  This made the lines stand out in greater relief.

I gave the whole canvas a sponge coat of an off white acrylic paint called Tailor's Chalk.  It's a cool white that heads a little to the taupe side.  I chose that because I was going to use a hammered bronze spray paint in a drip technique and from previous experience I knew the finished colour was a taupe tone.  I was also going to experiment with some fluid acrylic in a teal/turquoise colour and a metallic aluminum.

After the base coat was dry.  I placed my canvas in my spray box (a large cardboard box that I saved for the purpose since I need to spray inside the house) and gave the heavily textured centre part of the canvas a heavy overspray that would drip down the canvas.  I let this dry as well. 

The next step was to lightly dilute the teal fluid acrylic and pour it in a line across the canvas while it was flat on my table and then stand the canvas upright to allow it to flow down the canvas.  I don't think I diluted the teal sufficiently because it didn't flow as I anticipated and I needed to help it with a brush.  Either that or my texture was too deep.  Either way, I wasn't satisfied with the result.  I ended up with too much teal in some areas and not enough in others.  I ended up using a paint brush to fill in some of the textured areas with the teal.  I had to respray the bronze over the areas of too much teal and that left me with more drips than I really wanted in some areas.

I used a gloss black lacquer enamel and a fine paint brush to highlight the ridges of the textured areas on the centre part of the canvas.  This made it look like the teal colour was pooling in the depressions.  I then added some metallic aluminum to other smaller depressions in a random manner.  Since the teal was a matte medium, a used a high gloss varnish on the teal areas so that the centre of the canvas had a uniform sheen on all the painted areas.

On the lower section of the canvas, I used some of the aluminum metallic paint to paint out the extra bronze drip lines and blend them into the base of the canvas.  I also sponged some of the Tailor's Chalk white to highlight the lower middle of the canvas and blend it softly into the background colours.

Overall, for my first textured painting, I'm pleased with the effect I've created.  It isn't exactly what I envisioned but I've learned as I've gone along which is the whole purpose of experimentation.  It will have a place of honour in the downstairs bathroom which isn't really a commentary on it's worth (I hope).