My Intuitive Acrylic Painting in Layers Process

See that big smile?  That's me holding my most recently finished hummingbird painting called "Hummerville" which I painted in an intuitive style with a layered acrylic painting technique.  This painting was so fun to create!

I thought you might enjoy seeing all the steps and phases of my acrylic painting process, from the first brushstrokes to the completed painting hanging up on our wall.  Creating this finished piece of artwork took many layers in order to create that interesting, yet soft texture.  

​I didn't set out to create a particular subject but decided to add elements as I went along.  I find my paintings are more playful and spontaneous when I paint in this intuitive style and end up being better than if I decide "this is the subject I want to paint."

Ready to see the process?  

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These were literally the first brushstrokes I painted on the canvas. It can sometimes be intimidating to see a big, blank canvas in front of you.  It’s helpful to just pick a color and put it onto the canvas.  Starting is half the battle!  Once you have some paint on the canvas, it’s easier to apply the next brushstrokes!

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​Here I’m putting the finishing touches on the underpainting. I usually work with areas of darker color for the underpainting as it creates a sense of depth with the underpainting color shining through the upper layers of paint.

Done with the underpainting! I covered the entire canvas with paint creating subtle textures and gradations.  I really liked how this underpainting looked.  In fact, I liked it so much that I kept it in my art studio at this stage for days just to enjoy it for awhile!

Here I'm starting to block in color using the color palette I’ve chosen for this painting.      I’ve been loving a color palette of a variety of shades of blue, pink and soft/warm yellow.  I find these colors are so happy and joyful!

​Adding texture now….. I’ve found that a painting needs to go through an ugly stage before it starts looking pretty!  The magic happens when you keep going but it’s easy to feel a bit of despair at the ugly phase! 

After looking at the painting for an extended period of time (sometimes I work on another painting if I need to and let it simmer for a bit), the next step will come to me.  I can’t explain this part but I’ll suddenly “see” a bird or flower or another subject appear and feel moved to help it come to life.   Once that happens, the painting part comes pretty easy.

​At this phase, I’ve starting to add the subjects, in this case a hummingbird and flowers.  You can see them take shape but I still need to add more detail.  They still look unfinished and without spark. :)

Finally...... finished! While I purposely wanted the hummingbird and main flowers to be a bit hidden in the abstract background that reminds us of a field of wildflowers, the extra details I added since the last phase make these subjects a focal point and provide the exciting “pop” in this painting.

I hope you enjoyed seeing all the steps involved in my layered acrylic painting process.  If you did, I’d really love to hear from you in the comments!  Also, if you share via the social media icons, it really helps my little blog post to get found among the gazillions of pages on the internet. Many thanks!


While the original art is not for sale, high quality art prints of this hummingbird painting  are available in my online art gallery in a variety of sizes, along with framing options.  Since the original is hanging in our living room, I can tell you from personal experience, this painting adds joy to our home environment every day!

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Thank you for following my art journey!