Helen Frankenthaler - Technique

Helen Frankenthaler

I absolutely love the large scale abstract paintings by Helen Frankenthaler. I appreciate her gentle and harmonious uses of color and soft shape. The more I have looked at her work the more fascinated I have become with her process. I have read that she may have been one of the first to come up with the technique of "soaking" her canvas. To do this she would work on raw canvas using turpentine to thin the paint, allowing it to soak into her canvas completely, becoming one with the canvas. In later years she used a similar approach, except with acrylic paint and water. After reading this I wanted to try this method in my own work, having never worked on raw canvas before.

"Flood" (1967), Helen Frankenthaler.

I love how the colors here are allowed to bleed into one another. I think this particular use of color in this work is great, they have a smooth and calm quality to them which create a harmony which is evident in much of her work.

"Spring Bank" (1974), Helen Frankenthaler.

Another example of how her layers of paint reacted beautifully with one another, allowing each color to move into each other slightly, creating only soft edges and no harsh lines.