Limited Palette Challenge – 8 Lightning Storm

The swirling chaotic storm danced with reckless abandon, its thunderous roars and electrifying flashes painting the sky in a mesmerizing symphony of chaos and beauty.

Lightning Storm – Limited Palette Challenge Day 8

On the second from last day, and maybe my favourite palette yet, I thought I’d create something abstract. It is exceptionally difficult to find something that has texture to use on a digital piece of art.

Abstract Lighting Storm Wall Art Print

Find the whole set of the Limited Palette Challenge prices in my Etsy Store – BLUE UNICORN DIGITAL

Limited Palette Challenge – 1 Sunset Summer

Water shimmered like liquid diamonds, reflecting the golden hues and warmth of the setting summer sun.

Sunset Summer

Messing around with a limited colour palette in Procreate Pocket app.

Buy Sunset Summer in my Etsy Store – Blue Unicorn Digital

Buy the A4 printable wall art in my ETSY store – BLUE UNICORN DIGITAL.

Floral Obsession

This one took a while for me to finish. It’s on a rather large stretched canvas. The colours and abstract nature make me feel a whole lot less stressed. I enjoyed creating these florals. In case you haven’t noticed it’s one of my favourite subjects to paint!

As I continue my way through my art journey I’ve found that I’m leaning towards fantasy and abstract art more and more. Using my palette knives and leaving streaks down the painting seam to make me happy.

Colours and shapes with soft blends and harsh contrast are far more interesting for me than “perfect hyper realism”. Hyper realism is a thing, but definitely not my thing. It’s kind of like when I cook, I can’t ever follow a recipe to the letter. I always have to change it, modify it and make it my own. For better or worse!

So far it’s working out for me so I think I’ll keep allowing myself to evolve. Painting and sketching for me may just be a hobby, but I’m absolutely at peace when in the process. Hopefully it turns into more than just a hobby – that’s the goal anyway!

Blood in the Water

I have been working on some really awesome pieces of abstract work this year so far.

I’m obsessed with certain colours and trying new techniques. Creating new textures is what I am aiming for. Different shapes and trying to make each piece visually stimulating and provocative.

They are all acrylic paint on canvas and are roughly the A4 in size.

“Blood in the Water”

“Poison in the Water”

“Pieces of Us”

Each piece has been created with nature and our planet in mind. Drips of red and cream to signal blood and human tissue decaying and destroying the water. Gold is the perfect colour to make our deeds seem pure and good but in reality it’s only covering up the corruption and greed.

The blue and earthy calming tones represent the ‘calm’ that most of us believe is happening.

I would love your opinion of the pieces, and your thoughts on the topics.

Obsession – Abstract Art

Obsession uses my all time favourite colours. Aptly named, I have an obsession with the colour purple. I like to have some drama in my paintings, the more contrast and texture the better.

Starting off with some basic colours and soft blends. I love to blend the paint together on my canvas, mixing the different colours by adding different amounts of each colour.

Adding more depth of colour and changing shapes where I think I need to. Nearly finished, I have to just add some more texture with the palette knife and I’m all done! I’m using packing tape to hold my canvas sheet to my board. It’s a really handy tool as it will give me a lovely little border around the edge of my sheet.

If you fancy popping over to see my next piece in progress, I have progress pictures available on my Facebook and Instagram accounts.

If you’re ready to purchase one of my paintings please pop over to my Etsy store.

Cheers guys,

Chrissy xx

Eternal – Abstract Art

My latest piece Eternal, I think, is one of my best abstract pieces. I loved creating it so much. It brought joy to my day, even if it started out terrible. Now that I have finished it, I don’t feel sad that it’s over. I feel excited. Excited to put it out into the world. No matter what anyone’s reaction is. I’m endlessly proud of my work and it’s the closest to perfect I’ve managed to obtain this far in my new found love and appreciation for abstract art.

Above: The first stages of creating Eternal.

Most people see an abstract piece and think “well that must have taken all of 2 seconds to slap the paint on.” But let me tell you, Abstract art, a good piece takes hours. It takes mastery of techniques that most people don’t think of as techniques at all. When the only map or blueprint you have is in your head it is incredibly difficult to transfer that on to a canvas. It also takes a skill that I’ve been finding the hardest to master so far and its probably the most important……. knowing when to stop.

In the picture above I am introducing some deeper colours and shapes with green, blue and purple. I love soft blends and cloud like shapes. I love adding the deeper colours to give the piece more drama.

The texture of paint is what I love, using paint brushes and palette knives to create depth and interest in the piece is something that is new to me. I am really loving learning about how the palette knives work and the interesting shapes you can make using them.

Above: Eternal – the finished piece.

With my new found fascination for soft blends and dramatic depth of colour I think I will be creating many more pieces similar to this one.

If you would like to follow me on my art journey come and follow my Instagram or Facebook pages. Want to own one of my pieces? That’s easy, go to my Etsy store to check out what’s available!

Cheers,

Chrissy xx

River through the mountains

Here is my first ever painting done with a palette knife. A river running through the mountains to the ocean.

I love the flow and peace that this painting seems to give. Although the river is clearly forcing its way to the ocean, the flow of water makes me feel calm and relaxed. This is the first piece of a series of paintings featuring rivers, the ocean and mountains. I’m surrounded by mountains here where I live so it’s not hard to find plenty of inspiration.

The first stage of this painting. I blocked in the background colours with a fat brush. I very much limited the amount of colours I used for this painting. I wanted to challenge myself to create a piece with depth using limited tools. I had 1 brush and one palette knife, red, blue, yellow, black and white. My favourite kinds of skies to create are definitely stormy skies. I like my paintings to have lots of drama in them. The acrylic paint I have used is Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic paint.

Next week I’ll be publishing another river painting I have created this year. To keep up to date with my current work please pop over to my social media pages.

Www.facebook.com/chrissyturleyartist

Www.instagram.com/chrissyturley30