Stochastic Painting


Stochastic painting is a process of were the painter will not have a preconceived idea of how the finished image will turn out. The word Stochastic derives from a Greek word for 'target', indicating something random in character.

 I quite like this way of working. I find there is something exciting about not knowing how my work will look when I've finished with it, going in blind and working with the composition until I am happy.

To start with I've used acrylic paint and painted various layers of colour all over the canvas but between layers I've covered up certain areas of the painting before painting the next layer. I've repeatwed this process using a differant colour each time but using colours that compliment each other. The end result has become something that is visually abstract.

Acrylic and Pastel on Canvas

For this project I layered paint and strips of masking tape to a canvas over and over again, covering and revealing marks and forms. I repeated this process until I was happy with the overall composition. When I applied the paint I tried to use a palette of colour that would work well through practise as shown in my sketchbook work below. I also used the left over masking tape and paint to create smaller compositions, again in sketchbook work.

I've started to look at artists than use similar techniques and Barnett Newman has stud out as being a big influence on this my current work. Below is a link to a video that shows his method of working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GacKM9yxiw4