Dripping Colour

I was on a roll yesterday, buoyed by the fact that i delivered my 4 beeswax collage to a gallery show, that i decided it was time to paint something. I haven't done anything in over 6 months. I wanted to try a technique i first saw on the show Top Design last year. One of the designers,Nathan Thomas created a quick painting for his room in the finale. It was so impressive. Th trick is that you paint it in one direction - then flip it sideways so that the drips run ACROSS the canvas. I think it tricks the eye in some way. It is not rocket science or high art - but it looks cool.

The first step was to spray water along the top edge of the canvas - you can faintly see the lines dripping down. Th first step SHOULD have been to go purchase a heavy plastic drop cloth, but i do like to jump right in and start working - so i thought a few newspapers on the linoleum would suffice (they did not).
Then i started squirting cheap acrylic paint along the top edge, spritzing it with more water, and letting the drips fall. You can see some of the paint was clumpy - so i added more water to thin it out.
At this stage i am worried that it is not going to have the effect i want. I want to make sure the drips show - and don't get completely painted over.

Here i am just adding more paint - sticking with a blues and greens pallette.

Here you can see i added some splashes of orange and red. I tried yellow - but the paint i had was not intense enough to stand up. You can see there are some globs and smudges - but it adds to the overall effect.

Drum roll please..... here it is! You let it dry, clean up the colossal mess you made, get in fight with husband over the crucial drip cloth, end up painting some old wooden deck chairs with the puddle of paint on the floor and hang it on the wall!

Ta da!