Finger painting experiment

Hello all, after a longish break from blogging here I am again, this time with a painting technique that I tried out for the first time only recently. Well, maybe not, but I can’t remember if I painted with my fingers during kindergarten years.

The inspiration for this painting is the word “mirror”. I have read about the ability of horses to mirror a person’s feelings and thoughts, so I chose to represent this word with two horses. Furthermore, I painted with both hands at the same time, mirroring their movements. For the final touches I used one hand at once, but always the same hand for the same side of the painting.

I used a A2-size sheet of paper, acrylic paint and a base layer of diluted tapestry glue (it kept the paint moist for long enough to edit any part of the painting at will). The whole process took a bit more than half an hour.

I sort of like the left-side horse better than the right-side one. The shadows have more contrast and make it look like it bends its head towards the other horse, which is a bit more static in pose.

I consider this almost as a screenshot of a thought. If I were to paint it again, I would work more on the planning, blocking proportions, and on the actual process of putting paint more accurately on the paper. This version is almost pure movement, which has its purpose and right, but makes me feel it is not a full thought.

And not last, the feeling of applying paint directly with my hands had something refreshing, daring, and direct, a feeling that I want to savour again. Acrylic paint is not toxic (but always check the instructions on the tubes!) and it washes away pretty easily with warm water and soap.

Till next time, take care and stay healthy!