Pretend Jackson Pollock

What to do when you need a large piece of art but can't find the right thing for your space? Roll up your sleeves and make it yourself! Here's how we created our own Jackson Pollock-style action painting.

We moved to a new apartment in September. It was wonderful natural light and lovely high ceilings. Our old flat was in a word, maximalist. It was lively and cozy, but after a year of pandemic living, it began to feel a bit oppressive. So in the new space, out with the visual clutter and in with light, bright, and airy.

What that meant in the living room was editing our collection of artwork down to just a few key pieces and hanging a single large scale piece of art over the sofa. The problem...we didn't have one and couldn't find anything we wanted to buy!

Get Inspired

Around that time, my older son brought home some paintings he had made at school in the style of Picasso, followed by a Cézanne-inspired landscape, and a very cool Mondrianesq color bar painting. If my seven year-old was making such interesting art at school, we could probably create something living room worthy ourselves!

Abstract art seemed the way to go and I came across this video about action painting. Made famous by Jackson Pollock in the 1950s, action painting involves drizzling and throwing paint on a canvas resting on the floor. It's fun, it's physical and my boys were more than a little excited about parentally sanctioned paint throwing.

Get Started

The boys and I sat down to plan our project. We measured the sofa and thought about how big our canvas should be and what colors we should use for our painting. I had them look around the room to see what colors were already there that they might want to incorporate. The resounding answer was that we needed to use all of the colors. They wanted to go rainbow. We like color, so why not?!

“What's more fun than throwing paint once? Doing it twice!

What's more fun than throwing paint once? Doing it twice! Before we went out and bought a canvas we did a test work with some paper and fingerpaint. Anything will do, but we like the drawing paper from Ikea, it's nice and sturdy and takes paint well. Like Mr. Pollock, I found a few unconventional things for them to use to spread the paint like popsicle sticks, sponges, a stick from the park, as well as paint brushes of all shapes and sizes. We added a little bit of water to our trusty Crayola fingerpaints (to make it easier to throw of course!) and got started. Here's what we ended up with:

Making a Masterpiece

For the real deal, we opted to go with a 5' x 3' canvas. Our couch is 6' and flanked by two end tables so a 5' x 3' size fills the wall, but doesn't overpower it (and allows for the all important head clearance over the sofa!). We found our canvas at Artland over in Wan Chai, but most art stores should have what you need.

For paint, we used watered down acrylics that I already had, but can also be found at any art shop. Finger or poster paints won't adhere to canvas well and you don't want all your hard work to just slide off! That said, kids need a lot of supervision with acrylic paints, especially the little ones. They don't wash out either, so make sure you use thoroughly cover the surface under and around your canvas and wear old clothes you don't care about.

We repurposed plastic takeaway containers for paint palettes. Like the fingerpaints, you do need to add a bit of water for maximum throwability! We all took turns with the colors, layering one at a time and stepping back to assess our work. Were things looking to dark? Did we need to add a brighter, more lively color next? Funnily enough the last color we added was white, to create a little more negative space on our fun, fabulous, abstract rainbow painting.

The Finished Product

And voila! Our finished painting! All in all, it was only about on hour of paint throwing, but what a glorious hour it was! We left our masterpiece out to dry in the sun and at the end of the day attached a bit of picture wire to the back and hung it up on the wall. We had so much fun planning and creating it, but what's even better is how the boys continue to look at it and discover new things to talk about amongst the squiggles and drips.