A slice of mid-century style

“life cycles” is a large abstract painting created using subtle pastel colours like grey, orange, white and pale green. These muted tones offer a real feeling of calm and relaxation to any space. Combined with detailed brushing arcs and soft movements of more vibrant colours allows this acrylic painting to feel well balanced.

If you look closer at the detail in this painting you will notice paint blending and transforming into all kind of wonderful colours and tones. Some of the brush strokes and patterns left behind in the pastel green paints and vibrant orange acrylic paint is just exquisite.

The balance of colour

Normally when you start a painting it will become obvious that certain areas of colour are dominating over other areas. This can apply to dark colours and light paint tones. This is where painting abstract art can be actually quite a fine balance that takes time to read and learn when things are working and when they are not.

I try to over one colour dominating over another but it can be tricky to strike a balance. This only comes with standing in front of the canvas with different colours and moving paint around on the canvas to work through light and dark areas. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of ending up with what I call mud, which is a brown sludge of mixed paint.

So it really is a skill to be able to know when the balance has been struck and I think the balance in this abstract painting works well. I love the green, orange and white paint together and I feel it hints at the mid-century colour palette of which I am a fan.