Finishing New Black and White Painting

By Abstractartbylt @artbylt

These new black and white paintings take more steps to complete because I have to allow each application of white paint or black paint to dry since I don't want them to mix into gray.  I'm used to blending colors as I paint, so this is entirely different for me. 

My next step on this one was to drip and splash some thin black paint into the white sections. I did this with the canvas lying flat on the floor of my studio so that the paint could drip and puddle easily.  This process takes courage because I wanted to control the accident enough in order to get the result I was looking for.  Yet the nature of an "accident" is that you can't control it entirely.

After the painting was dry, I then spent some time staring at it, selecting sections to carefully paint in with black paint.  I also cleaned up some of the messy edges of white shapes with the black paint.  This is the stage where I am making the final decisions about composition and whether or not the painting works as a whole.

  Tall Black and White #1, 10" x 48" acrylic on canvas.