Embracing Texture

I don’t think I fully understood what texture was until recently. 

I knew that art could have texture, but I wasn’t really exposed to it. I used to visit the art gallery in my city as a kid, but it was mostly filled with water colour paintings and drawings. 

The most exposure I’ve had to art is through prints. Even when you keep the general idea, you lose a lot of texture in a print. This is one of the reasons I don’t make them. It would continue to perpetuate the myth that art has no brush strokes. There’s no directional application and the colours can’t be reproduced accurately.

The lack of texture in the art that I was exposed to made me think it was undesirable.. But now I know that’s not the case. My paintings can have texture, and it makes them better.

Look, but Don’t Touch

I’m very much into tactile things. Whenever I see a rough surface, I always want to run my fingers over it. 

I think that’s what was holding me back from incorporating texture into my art. I was taught that fine art is something you look at, but don’t touch.

Because of that, texture is something that I never fully appreciated, and I worked hard to make sure that even my brush strokes were blended perfectly.

A Tactile Discovery

I’ve been coming up with ways to remind myself that texture is okay. And figuring out how I want to portray texture has been a big part of my process recently. 

Before, my paintings had pretty low relief, and that’s why I have a lot of gratitude for my pastel practice - I can create texture with low relief. I would build up the perception of texture with flowers and plants, but up until the last 18 months, my paintings were pretty flat.

What I’ve started doing is texturing a canvas before I even start painting. Using that as a base has allowed me to work with texture from the very beginning of my process and I like to see the grittiness of the art on top of it.

Now, I want you to see the brush strokes. I want you to see the build up of bigger textures and stronger sections of work.

This sense of play with texture has really changed my art process for the better.