Melting Moonlight

"Melting Moonlight," acrylic and oil-based spray paint on 18x14 canvas

I wanted to experiment with abstraction, so I took my canvas outside, poured water all over it, then applied flat black and metallic silver oil based spray paints all over.  I dropped in Golden High Flow Acrylic in Quinacridone Magenta, Phthalo Blue, Carbon Black and Titanium White.  I let the blue and magenta flow together to create various shades of violet, as I wanted an analogous color scheme of magenta, violet and blue.  I just had fun with my experiment, letting the paints flow freely.  Here was the result:

I wanted the subject of my painting to go along with what the paints did on their own.  When I looked at my canvas, I saw a tree and a sinking, melting moon.  I wanted my tree to be twisted, like some of the trees I noticed around Palo Duro Canyon, or even in New Mexico.  At first, my tree's branches all went to the left side.  I decided to add the right lower branch to give my painting a better sense of balance.  I wanted to use a texture paste my son bought me, Liquitex Black Lava, so I drew my tree freehand with a black paint marker, then went over it with the Black Lava.  My last step was painting more High Flow Quinacridone Magenta all over my tree.