Painting With Oils

Pollock and Oils

Pollock is best known for his drip paintings, which are large canvases covered in complex webs of interlocking lines and splashes of paint.

What defines Pollock's abstract style is his innovative approach to painting. He famously developed the technique of "drip painting," where he would drip and splash paint onto the canvas from above, using sticks, knives, and even his hands to create intricate networks of lines and drips. This allowed him to create large-scale works that were both gestural and organic, full of movement and energy.

Another key aspect of Pollock's style is his use of color. He often used a limited palette of muted earth tones, but also experimented with bright and bold colors, creating a dynamic interplay between light and dark. He also incorporated other materials into his paintings, such as sand, broken glass, and even pebbles, to add texture and depth to his works.

With this tool we've provided every color under the sun (at least that your device can display) so it'll be up to you to carefully pick and choose those colors that best bond together. Be careful though, once you've got paint on the canvas, you can't un-paint it!

Some Development Notes:

Originally the code for this oil painting was from a super old open source old flash demo, that I had ported to JavaScript over 10 years ago, this demo is using most of that same code. This also isn't the first of it's kind online, there's a fantastic website JacksonPollock.org, another great online tribute to the style.

I debated if you should be able to change the background color under the paints themselves, to better help discover nice color sets, but then decided changing the background understandably should mean you have to start over, and rely again on the erratic nature of the paints to get your work out.