Abstract Flowers in peach and red

Abstract Flowers 1 by Marion Hedger in peach and red

Oil, palette knife painting

18x24cm on 3.5cm deep gallery wrapped canvas
Available

I have finished my commission and I am giving it a good dose of  looking at to pick up any changes needed to call it finished. After completing it, I was in the mood for some florals, and following on from my Namibia Impressions I tried an abstracted floral. I so enjoyed painting this that I have created a mini series of them in different sizes which I shall post over the next week or so.

About this painting.
I had a tube of Winsor and Newton liquin impasto gel purchased well over a year ago and never used. I watched a couple of  You Tube videos on how to use it as I wasn't sure of the proportions. The advice varied a lot from not more than 20% to as much as you want to achieve transparency. My feeling is that 20% would be about right as I wonder about the binding of the paint with more than this.

I mixed several piles of paint, a light cream, light pink, and light blue and added a very scientific measurement of a  'dollop' of the gel to each pile. It mixed in very easily but didn't seem to bulk up the paint immediately although after a few minutes the paint became quite. stiff.

Using a palette knife I laid the paint in random patches on the canvas. I then mixed the colours for the flowers and using irregular shapes added the flowers. Finally I finished off with ivory black at the bottom and some blue/purple. The bright blue patches indicate the light bouncing about.

I am unsure if you can use the impasto gel over paint that doesn't have it in. Does anyone know the answer to this?

A close up of the knife work