Learn how to create your own abstract background for a unique and colourful exploration. Let’s begin by creating with some acrylic paint and a small sponge. It’s super easy to do and the possibilities are endless…

Supplies:

• small sponge
• acrylic paint
• watercolour paper (or another heavy type of paper)
• tape for a frame around your piece
• black paint and a small paintbrush

Click here to find out all the details.

The American painter, Ellsworth Kelly was the inspiration for these grid creations. He was very well-known for his colour-grid paintings and abstract work.

For today’s art-inspiration you need to begin by going on a scavenger hunt around the house. What do you think will make a good stamp? Gather up around 8-12 smaller items that will be good for stamping. I found marker lids, an earplug, a piece of lego, lids of containers, tops of an eraser, and some foam pieces. Yours will look different based on what you have at home – that’s good! 

To learn more click here.

Whenever I want to be awed by an artist I take a look at some of the work done by Andy Goldsworthy If you want to develop the art of patience, this is a great place to start. Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. What that means is; as Goldworthy states “I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and “found” tools – a sharp stone, the quill of a feather, thorns.  I take the opportunities each day offers: if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be leaves.”

To learn more click here.

A few years ago I discovered Gelli Plate printing and it quickly became one of my favourite ways to create. With the plate you can explore mono-printing and make your own paper for collage projects and explore so many possibilities

You can make a your own gelatin plate from gelatin that you can buy at the grocery store.

To make a print simply apply a few dots of acrylic paint to the surface and then use the brayer or rolling pin to spread it across the surface. You can spread the paint in so many ways to get all kinds of effects. Next, place a piece of regular copy paper over top and smooth over with your hand. They gently pull the paper off the surface to reveal your print.

To learn more click here.

You can make your own scratch art at home – it really is easy. Let’s begin by colouring in the background in different colours. Scribble away, colour this way and that using all the different colours until the whole page is covered over. This will look like a piece of art all in itself and you may not want to do the next step – which is to paint over everything with black paint. If you don’t have a paintbrush you can use a sponge.

To learn more click here.