It's all about the layers! | Abstract Painting | Mixed Media

watch how these two on 6x6 in Wood came together all right let's get [Music] started if you love abstract art and the creative process you are in the right place I'll talk you through my steps and throw in some stories about being an artist and running an art business my name is Betty Franks and I'm super happy you're here we're going to jump right into this I've got two pieces on wood that I have already put just so down these are six inches by six inches and um the gesso I did several days before I started creating and I let that dry thoroughly and when I put down gesso I really like to also scratch right into that wet gesso to just start building up some texture all right so we're going to do two side by side today and these two I did I'm recording this in March of 2024 and the I actually did back in December of 2023 these were super fun to create here I'm going to show you the paint colors I'm going to be using if you've been following me for a while you know I love my Nova color paints and I'm going to include a um actually what am I going to include I'm going to just um comment below if you're interested in learning about the colors that I like to use they are uh grouped into a bundle called Betty's bundle and I can send you a link to it so that you can check that out so I'm putting out some paints here I'm going to start off with some warm colors I like to separate my warm colors and my cool colors so my warm colors being the Reds the pinks floresa magentas and um red what else did I forget to mention so those are all kind of the warm colors and then cool colors being blue green purple now yellow works for both warm or cool colors so I always use yellow with both or I should say with either one all right and I'm looking for my black I do love to put down some black first before I get started on all of my colors and the reason for that and here we're going to be using black gesso just because I have a ton of it and I used to use white gesso all the time as my white paint so here I'm going to use black gesso as my black paint and as I was mentioning normally I like to use um let's see I'm trying to remember the name of the black paint that I like but um can't remember it anyway um it's just a really solid nice dark color which I love and here I'm scratching right into that so the gesso the black gesso will work in a pinch if you don't have black paint or if you just prefer to use it and here I wiped off my brush and I'm just going right into the white and creating some gray putting down some larger pieces right away I used to not do this but I I would say in the last year or so I started being a bit more intentional on those on the first layer creating some structure to it early on it just made it a bit easier for me to get through the painting if I added some of those larger elements um from the beginning and I do like to mix my paints as I go so I'll be mixing these colors kind of harmonizing them as we go and now harmonizing without the cool colors just harmonizing with warm colors and I do love working on those edges so having the paint go all the way around if you're new to my channel welcome happy to have you here I would love for you to subscribe so that you're notified of all of my videos that come out and if you are coming back my friend thank you for being here again I so appreciate it my goal this year for 2024 has been to start bringing you more videos on a consistent basis granted we are in March and this is going to be my fifth video in a row this year so I've been trying to do a video each week now the first few months of the year I spent in Croatia with my parents uh taking care of them helping them out and so I wasn't able to do any videos at that time but now that I'm back in California I am fully dedicated to creating videos and getting them out to you weekly so please hit that subscribe button so that you are also uh notified so um Whenever I send out a new one and it's typically on Wednesdays that that it goes out all right I'm just moving along here you know these earlier layers is more about just adding paint adding marks I like to put down a variety of different marks so that there's some interest happening they're not all the same size we want to have you know both ends of the scale in terms of size so I like to think of of putting down marks that are really small and marks that are really large now granted we're working on a very small substrate here it's only 6 in by 6 in by 1 and a half on the sides so I'm using a small brush but I'm still thinking about you know how do I make some really large marks mediumsized marks and small marks and that just means I need to you know use smaller brushes to do that to to achieve that my other goal this year has been to spend less time on social media and that's one of the reasons why I am bringing more videos to you uh I kind of like being on YouTube a whole lot more I love your questions I love responding I'm helping you out wherever possible I love your comments about the videos that means so much to me it really encourages me to to create more so thank you for those so going back to you know wanting to spend less time on social media I've been spending less time on Instagram for sure I think I'm only doing like two posts a week but I'm still growing so it's interesting I had read that if you post less you will continue to grow and so I thought you know I'm going to give that a try and so it's true I'm still continue to grow on there but I'm spending a lot less time on there which you know I love being on there just to you know check out everything but it it does take away so much time for me to post every single day create a real every day um add to stories every day you probably know this too if you're an artist and you're trying to get your art out there so it can be frustrating but um you know I think last week I only posted twice I do like to post in stories stories is fun for me it's super easy to post something in stories and it's it's very casual and I don't you know I don't stress over it I just you know whatever I've got on hand that I want to share I put it in there I enjoy doing that and I'm still on Facebook I still post on Facebook I post to groups as well so I am active in that area and I love seeing all the artwork that comes up in my feed but the other places that I've been wanting to spend more time and and I am starting to spend more time is YouTube as I mentioned and then also on Pinterest so I'm spending more time on Pinterest and it's great because on Pinterest you can post and you can also schedule all your posts and it doesn't have this algorithm where I have to be there to reply to comments actually very few people even comment when they're on Pinterest Pinterest is more of a place where people like to come and explore and learn new things or for example if you're a gardener and you want to get inspiration it's a great place to you know to get inspiration so you excuse me pin Pinterest people are more like planners or people who want to learn something and so I'm finding that I really like being out there on Pinterest and posting information and posting my artwork and things of that nature so you can find me on Pinterest um and my name on Pinterest is Betty Frank's art just like it is here so I'm showing you the cool colors that I'm going to be using today love all these colors and I believe all of them are part of Betty's bundle but don't quote me on that because I I I always end up having extra jars of paint my desk and then I start to forget which one is in Betty's bundle but this one definitely is this CAD yellow medium is one of my favorite favorite yellows all right one more color oh here we go we're going to do one more yellow so Indian yellow another one of my favorites it's a it's a warmer yellow and that jar hasn't been opened in a while it does dry on there just pull some color right off the lid there so that's the that's the um pint size and oh no wait a minute that's the quart size and then there's the smaller ones that I've got on my desk which are the oh my goodness my brain just froze anyway I'm going to put it on the screen here the size is of them all of the sizes I seem to always forget when I start talking about it so I'll include that here for you but um it does come in three different sizes so you can check that out I like the small ones just to test out colors first make sure I like them before I start buying the larger sizes now because my that that layer was dry the first layer that I put on there I decided to go in there with some Mark making and just just to add some more marks in between layers so we did it early on and then I'm doing it kind of in the middle here and then we'll do some final Mark making in the final layers so here I'm just looking for some brushes it's not like I don't have a ton of them over on the side but for whatever reason I wanted something different and changing out your brushes I think is really key in in doing your paintings but also you know creating something a little bit different or exploring a bit different a little bit differently so it's not just always about you know creating in a different way but using different brushes like this one is a softer brush it's not as stiff as some of my other ones so it's going to go on a little bit differently so every once well I do like to change them up a bit although I do have some favorites too I bet we all do as you can see I definitely have a process there's a process that I follow every single time I am creating whether I'm creating small like this or or you know super sizing it really large there's a process that I that I discovered or I just kind of fell into uh many years ago and I found that when I followed this process I was able to create pieces of art from start to finish and ever since I discovered that I have followed a process now the process has been tweaked a little bit over the years you know experimenting and trying something a little bit different but nothing too drastic because I like my process and it works for me so I'm curious you know let me know in the comments below do you have a process that you like to follow and if so you know do you like that process or are you always exploring something new and different I have to say if you are just beginning to learn to create abstract art exploring and doing something different each time is really important because if you don't do that you're not going to be able to figure out a process you're not going to figure out what works for you and what you enjoy doing so I would say that you know if you are really early in your art Journey explore you know do something different every time I certainly did when I was first starting out of course I didn't have a process so I was doing something different almost each time I came to you know sit down and create something but through that practicing and through experimenting and exploring I slowly developed a process that I liked you know for example the Mark making you know I really liked starting that off in the beginning because I never knew what to do or or how to start a painting so I found that by doing those marks at the very beginning it just kind of loosened me up right away and gave me a chance to kind of not just stare at this white um you know piece of paper or or Canvas OR or a piece of wood but rather you know okay it's got something down now now I can you know figure out where to go from here so to me process is so important and even when I try to do something a little bit different I still follow some of my process and so when I'm trying something different it might mean you know completely different colors that I normally don't do um for example in the last video I did a 10-minute exercise that was very um neutral colors compared to this one here where I really like a lot of bright colors so I'm still following a process but I changed up the colors so that's an example where I still have that Foundation of having a process in place that helps me get through a painting helps me start the painting and get through the painting this video is SP up but I still tend to work pretty quickly I don't like to think too much when I am creating I find that when I do that I feel like I get stuck a lot faster if I just stop and stare at it and and kind of second guess myself in terms of where I want to go next so I find that first of all if I'm working on two pieces it's much easier to not get stuck because you can just switch over to the the other one and do something over there and then come back with kind of fresh eyes and and see it a little bit differently when you go back to the other piece so that that helps a lot but the other thing I really think that helps me a lot is that I tend to not listen to music when I'm creating I really like listening to an audio book or a podcast or or even a video but I'm not looking at the screen I'm just listening to to what is happening and that just helps me stay out of my head too much and let the creative side my you know the right brain take over and just create and not have that left brain being so judgmental it still happens but it just doesn't happen as much anymore I don't know that it can ever entirely go away I think there's always a part of us that is going to question what we're doing and why we're doing it and I think that's okay as long as it doesn't take over in such a way that it keeps you from creating I am drying in between just because I want to continue working through this very quickly so I like to have that little drying tool heating tool um it's used for mixed media mostly I've I've had it for I've had it for like 10 years now I think more than 10 years and it works great and it's not too loud either but it produces a whole lot of heat so it dries these little ones very quickly for my large piece is I have a hair dryer that I use all right coming back in I think I covered up some of that black where I wanted to make it a bit more solid in that area and I am using my finger there instead of a brush so if there's a point where you know or I shouldn't say a point if you're feeling like you are often getting stuck while you are creating your pieces I have got a free guide that I put together because getting stuck was pretty common for me and it's still there are still times pretty regularly that I get stuck I'm like okay I'm not sure where to go next and I've got this checklist that has helped me over the years and I call it um excuse me it's um nine ways to infuse energy and interest into your artwork and but but for me it's also to help me get unstuck because it's this checklist of things to think about to look for in your painting and if it's not there then do that and see if that's going to help get you to that next step which is you know getting to the end of creating that piece so if you are interested in that just down below you can leave the word energy and I'll know that you are interested in that guide or it's underneath this video there's a link to it and I will try to remember to pin it to the first comment below this video as well so it's easier to find but anyway just leave the word energy and I will send you a link to get that guide and I hope the guide helps you because I know it has tremendously helped me over the years so I've got a lot going on on both of these pieces and as you can tell I'm going back over many of the areas and that's because you know I I may not like the color the the first color I put down or maybe I just want a lighter um shade of it or value of it and that's one thing that these two pieces I still haven't really addressed the values entirely I have addressed the dark values because you can see my really dark areas but like the one that I'm working on right there it's got some light values in there but I need to come back in with some more and the one on the left doesn't have very many light values so that uh still need to come back in and consider doing that I love working on these little ones they are so much fun and they're pieces that I can get done in a relatively short period of time which makes me feel so accomplished that I got something done as opposed to working on large canvases like I'm working on one right now and you know it you know I work on it for several hours and then I leave it so that it dries overnight and then I come back again the next day and so that this will go on for days before the piece is done unlike where I can sit down and get the majority of you know two small ones like this done in a you know in an hour and a half two hours I think it's more like two hours so it makes me feel like I've got something done and I just love seeing the end result instead of waiting days on end when I'm working on a large piece to see the end result if you like the way that I create and you want to learn from me I would love to have you in one of my online courses I have um as of this year I have two online courses last year I launched my what I call my Flagship course which is you really gives you all the fundamentals I walk you through slowly step by step we go through exercises there's a couple of bonus videos in there as well that um you know will help you through the entire process and that one is um wildly popular and I'm super happy I mean the pieces that the students have been creating from that one from that course is just blows me away it's just amazing to me and I am thrilled to share um I'm going to put a few on the screen here some of the pieces of art that have been created but if you're interested in that one just leave me the word down below uh learn and I will send you the link but also I'm going to put on the screen here because you are watching this on YouTube I want to give give you a special coupon code for 20% off uh coupon code is YouTube easy to remember right so um use the coupon code YouTube to get 20% off um on that course now the other course that I have is um called mini magic it's a concertina so a concertina is an accordion art Journal um it folds up and so I show you how to make that and then we create um on one side of it together from start to finish this course I created um so that it was less expensive and also um it gives you just the fundamentals it doesn't U we don't do exercises together like I do in my Flagship course but you get to do you know you get to create with me you get to see how I create I talk you through the process so it's a shortened one uh where it's just like about an hour and a half long and it's only $37 but because you're watching me on YouTube again I'm going to give you the coupon code YouTube so that you can get 20% off of that one as well so it's a super fun mini course if you're not sure about taking the full course which the full course is um over four hours no over five hours um but this mini course is just an hour and a half so check those out and if you're interested in the magic uh mini magic one just leave the word magic down below and I'll know that you're interested in that one I'm loving this mint green color that I'm adding here fresh it reminds me even though I'm creating this in December it reminds me of Springtime which I am so looking forward to like I said we're in March right now and the weather is finally starting to get a little bit warmer I often walk several many times during the week with my sister she just lives a few doors down and last night was the first night in a long time that I just put on a light H sweatshirt and not my jacket not my coat so that was nice I could tell that the weather is starting to warm up just a bit so as you can see I have no patience I don't set these aside to let them dry I help them along so that I can continue working on them if you love watching me create and you've been enjoying all my videos there are you know several ways that you can support me which is to again subscribe give me a thumbs up comment down below or ask me a question and also share it with um your art your artsy friends out there who you think might enjoy this kind of artwork and then another way that you can support me if you want to support me financially and you want to buy me a cup of coffee you can do that by clicking those three little dots underneath the video I think it's over on the um right hand side and then you'll see a heart with a dollar sign in it and next to it it says thanks that's where you can buy me a cup of coffee and um support me financially and that really means a lot to me so at this point I'm coming back in with both either a warm color or a cool color because I'm trying to bring this to completion and that's pretty normal for me after I go through some warm colors and some cool colors then I'll have both out on my palette so that I can go back and forth between them to finish and to to bring it to um to completion before we do the final Mark making so you know finishing it up with all of the paint now coming in with some lighter values here in that see when I'm tapping my finger like that that means I'm getting towards the end but I'm trying to figure out what else it needs and so glad I came in with these lighter values I think it helps so much to have that contrast especially if you're putting a light color next to a really dark color now I'm not doing that so much right there but that's if you want if you do that you're going to see a much more um your eye will go there a lot faster than anywhere else because our eyes you know as much as we love to use color our eyes really sense the values more so than the colors so if you want to get someone's eye to go to a specific area on your painting consider adding both ends of the value scale next to each other so something really light and something really dark next to each other I was trying to double speed up the parts where I am drying and I just noticed that I missed this particular one so we get to watch me dry these see how that white really stands out when when we add it to up against some of the darker areas here I'm using a rigger brush which I love because it's has very long bristles on it and it just um makes it easier to make those circles but I also like to use it to to fill in when I go over areas it creates more depth that way especially if I go over the the same marks in a different color or a similar color maybe um the the values are a bit lighter or darker um the shading might be lighter or darker so that just adds more depth to the piece and adds more interest to it as well so you'll find that I often don't entirely cover up something that was there before e even when I'm working small like this I I love watching these videos because I even amaze myself how many layers I've got going here and how many colors I've got going here it always fascinates me to come back and watch after you know after I had done it all at the time that I'm creating I'm so in the zone that I'm not you know paying as much attention to what's going on but as I do these videos for you and I get to rewatch it all it's just interesting to me watching it come together I hope it is for you too so I'm coming pretty close to the end with paint using paint and a brush I can tell now that you know I've slowed down a bit and that's usually my indicator where I'm not sure what else I want to do what else can I possibly do to add to it to enhance it to to make it better you know there is a point where I need to stop because then then it's going to be totally overdone and that's that fine balance of figuring that out and honestly I don't think there is a formula for that other than a lot of practice and figuring it out for yourself there are many pieces that I have overworked over the years because I didn't know exactly when I should stop and you know it it's just come to me through practice and doing there's nothing that replaces doing the yourself and I like to think of you know when I sit down I try not to put so much pressure on myself about creating a piece of art that I like I like to kind of say to myself okay well you know let's see what happens let's practice let's explore let's have some fun and and of course you know I follow my process which as I mentioned early on it it's a lifesaver for me because without a process I do get stuck I don't understand where to go and I find that's especially true when I sit down and I say okay well I want to try something a little bit different I want to create something a little bit different well right away to me I'm I'm thinking okay I don't know what process should I follow to create something different something that isn't my usual Style coming back in with that cobalt blue because I got rid of the majority of it coming right back in again see I don't like blue straight out of the jar and I had some of it that was pretty much just the pigment straight out of the jar so I came back in and softened that out a bit it becomes very Stark and very noticeable well basically basically it doesn't harmonize with everything else all right I think we are yep putting Lids on and I'm showing you where it's at I do slow this down at the very end for you I know here it's a little bit fast but so after I do the final Mark making I've got photos for you as well I love these two they both went to new homes so um happy that they found new homes but I I loved creating these too and I love the way they turned out okay so we are back and okay I didn't totally love them because I wanted to do just a little bit more so here what I felt was that I didn't have a good balance of larger elements compared to that big circle that I have in that bottom right corner so I came in and added these larger elements to kind of balance that and that'll you know I I walked away from those two pieces so I was able to get away from them and and get some fresh eyes on them by coming back to it and often times when I do that something when something stands out to me or I should say something does stand out and it becomes very obvious that something was missing or that just uh wasn't working quite the way I wanted it to here I think I'm just adding these marks because well because I have paint on my brush I want to do something with it all right adding a bit more red up there blending that in with the yellow that I had on my brush and adding it to the other side too or the other piece okay so I think we're just about done with that part here we go I dried it and I'm going to go right over so I only had one layer down for those larger elements there and so I'm coming back in and just adding another layer just so it works well with the rest of it okay now we're completely dry and I usually run my hands over it because um okay so we're not done there was something else that was bothering me and I think it was that there was too much stuff going on in that one area I'm trying to remember it's been months so let's see what I do okay so all of those pink marks I didn't like it was just um too much happening in that area I needed to needed to quiet it down a bit and that's what I'm doing here see a painting is never done it's just abandoned at some point because truly I mean I can keep coming back and saying okay well maybe I can do a little of this and maybe I can do a little of that so at some point you just got to say okay that's all I want to do okay adding another layer over there and doing the same on the other side or on the other piece not as noticeable one more layer on top of those larger elements those larger marks all these marks represent my love for fields of flowers so they they all marks symbolize you know something to do with flowers or or fields of flowers or trees or Stepping Stones I also love old fences that are falling down so I take all of those you know marks that I see it's interesting because my brain works the way it works is when I look at plants and trees and and nature I look at the lines and that that's the first thing that I notice about what I'm looking at you know whether it's a flower or a tree is I'm looking at the different lines and I didn't realize that until you know a few years ago um that I was doing that that that that's the way my brain was perceiving the the information in front of me you know I still love the beauty of the flower itself but I look at the lines of it you know the petals the outline of the petals uh the stem the the uh the leaves you know I'm kind of drawn to those things so that's one thing that really helped me with figuring out my style of painting is paying attention to what I was looking at and what I was noticing and using that information to help guide me in my art making okay now I think I'm calling it done there we go I am going to dry it one last time and let's start in with some Mark making here and I am just putting down marks and then I'm rubbing them out to soften them so that they are not so um obvious that's neocolor 2 probably a neocolor 2 not a neocolor one here I'm coming in with I say prismacolor pencil I usually start with a regular pencil and I didn't this time for some reason I want to make sure that I get marks on all the sides as [Music] well like doing my scribbling and erasing a little bit of it back so more scribbles over on the other side and this final Mark making tends to be you know it's not real obvious it's not going to greatly alter the piece of art that I already created I like to think of it as more of enhancing it kind of the the icing on the cake so to speak those are the Stabila Woodies that are very crayon likee and creamy those you can put on and leave as is or you can also rub those out a bit now with all of these marks that I'm putting down you can use an eraser to erase any of them whether it's a prismacolor pencil or a crayon the neocolors or the Stabilo Woodies a regular eraser will erase all of those marks so don't be afraid to put down marks at the very end or at any point you know know that you can come in and just erase them that's what I'm doing there I think I'm looking for black now I'm putting scribbles on top of the black that that is a china marker so it's more of tone onone colors let me know which one's your favorite the one on the left or the one on the right honestly for me I'm I have a hard time picking I really like both of them and I love seeing both of them together like this all right I'm going to sign it I got my little pencil out I like to sign in pencil because I often mess it up and then I can just erase it and start again and here I was having a hard time where to sign because I didn't really Leave myself a good spot so I signed in the very very corner all right here we go I did slow this down for you guys so that you can check out all the sides and see all of it I love the sides almost as much or sometimes even more so than than the front painting it's just so cool to see all those paintings on each side so much going on there hey I want to take this opportunity to thank you so much for being here it means a lot to me again hit that subscribe give me a thumbs up leave a comment or a question happy to answer and then share this with a friend of yours there we go there's the two and I've got some photos for you here looking good all right I hope you have a super fabulous and creative day and I look forward to seeing you in the next video take care

Channel: Betty Franks Art

Views: 58,859

Keywords: abstract art, acrylic painting, process video, intuitive, canvas, painting, mark making, mixed media, expressionism, paint brush, Robert Burridge, art2life, nicholas wilton, nancy hillis, jane davies, SurajFineArts, Louise Fletcher, Tracy Verdugo, donna downey, art with adele, Flora Bowley, Michael Lang, Ivy Newport, Künstlerstreich, gerda, beginner, art supplies, vlog, therapy, studio tour, art hacks, Louise De Masi, Kelsey Rodriguez, Pat Kay, Pamela Caughey, Museum of Modern Art

Id: EkjfxiHy3pg

Length: 48min 44sec (2924 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2024