I was recently asked by a friend to make a large (really large, like three feet tall and four feet wide, large) painting for her daughter. Whenever a friend or client asks for a painting I always ask three things:
What size painting do you want? When do you need it? What colors do you like?
One thing I like to do when a friend becomes a client is to have them buy the canvas. Having the friend/client buy the canvas saves me time and money plus it gives the friend some idea of how expensive art supplies can be. It also involves your friend in the project so they feel an added connection to the painting.
A few days later my friend brought me a huge beautiful canvas. Next, I made sure I would have ample time to make the painting. In this case I had about five weeks which was great because I knew I would be out of town for two weekends. Finally, I asked about color and the answer was definitely purple—lots of purple.
What I did next is kind of unique and a bit over the top. Since this was going to be my largest painting to date, I made four practice paintings for my friend/client. The idea was to have four different styles of pour paintings that I could then snap a picture of, and have the friend decide which one she liked the best. I would use that painting as the basis for the final project. Each of these four paintings were done on a 16×20 inch canvas and all were created using similar paints.
I filmed the creation of all four of these paintings. The editors at AcrylicPouring.com asked if they could run the videos as a series, showing one painting video per week and wrap up the series by showing the creation of the final huge painting. I thought that sounded like fun. So here we are.
Below are the four paintings I created. I’ll hold off until the end of the series to tell you which one of these paintings the client chose.
Purple Pour Option One: Vertical Swipe from Center
Purple Pour Option Two: Classic Swipe
Purple Pour Option Three: Straight Pour with Tilting
Purple Pour Option Four: Classic Flip-Cup
Steve Shaw is an artist and teacher living in Atlanta, Georgia. His days are spent in the classroom teaching his students the basics of art and self-expression. In the evenings and weekends, he paints. Steve has shown his work in several galleries in the Southeast and has illustrated three children’s books. Recently Steve has discovered acrylic pour painting and is putting all his other projects on hold while he journeys down this artistic road.
To see more, follow him on Instagram, visit his website, watch his videos on his YouTube Channel and purchase his paintings at Etsy.com.
Love your work. Thank you for the tips and infos.