At this point I wanted to be able to make actual paintings whenever I was in the mood to, so I bought a big pack of 8″ x 10″ canvasses and a pack of 10″ x 14″ canvasses. I liked all the preparation of the molded impasto but wanted to try something looser this time. I got the idea to just use the blade of my hand instead of a palette knife.

I made a sky-blue paint mixture (with no medium). Loosely mixed it for a streaky effect. Then, while the background was still wet, I mixed up two good globs of heavy matte gel, one white, one dark blue. I just grabbed a big handful of both colors and made a big smear across the canvas, mounding it up as high as I could.

I got a pretty good “glob” of impasto but not quite as high as I would have liked. Ended up pretty pleasing if a little childlike. The canvas was a little empty so I did a second and third pass creating a kind of oval swirl. Using a very simple mostly monochromatic color palette did help me create something dramatic but balanced. Having cheap canvasses around is super nice for knocking out a quick idea.