How to Create Emotionally Charged Paintings Using Colour and Texture

Art has the power to evoke deep emotions, and in acrylic painting, colour and texture play a huge role in creating that emotional impact. Whether you want your painting to feel joyful, melancholic, intense, or serene, the way you use colour and texture can take your artwork to an entirely new level. Painting in a loose and bold style allows you to push these elements even further, creating emotional depth through expressive brushstrokes and dynamic colour combinations.

Here’s how to use colour and texture to create emotionally charged paintings that resonate with your viewers.

1. Start with Colour Psychology

Colour is one of the most immediate ways to convey emotion in a painting. Understanding how different colours affect mood and emotions can help you create paintings that evoke the feeling you’re aiming for. For instance, warm colours like reds, oranges, and yellows tend to convey energy, passion, or warmth, while cooler colours like blues, greens, and purples can evoke calm, sadness, or contemplation.

Penny’s Tip:
When I want to paint something bold and passionate, I lean heavily into warm colours like deep reds or vibrant oranges. For more introspective, calming pieces, I go for cool blues or soft, muted greens. Think about the emotional response you want and build your colour palette around it.

2. Build Layers of Colour for Depth

Emotionally charged paintings often have a richness that comes from layering colours. Instead of relying on flat colour, build up your painting through multiple layers of translucent and opaque paint. This adds depth and complexity, allowing subtle undertones to show through and create a more nuanced emotional impact.

How I Do It:
I start with a ground of bold, contrasting colours, letting them peek through subsequent layers. I often mix glazing medium into my paints to create semi-transparent layers, allowing me to build rich, dynamic colour fields that add emotional depth to the painting.

3. Use Texture to Create Tactile Emotion

Texture can dramatically influence the mood of your painting. Bold, rough textures can evoke feelings of tension, excitement, or intensity, while smoother, more flowing textures suggest calmness or softness. You can achieve this by experimenting with thick impasto techniques, layering with palette knives, or using textured mediums like gels or pastes.

Penny’s Texture Trick:
For emotionally intense sections of a painting, I use thick, textured brushstrokes or apply acrylics with a palette knife, creating layers of raised paint that viewers can almost “feel” with their eyes. For quieter, softer moments, I blend the paint smoothly with a large flat brush, creating gentle transitions.

4. Let Your Brushstrokes Tell a Story

Your brushstrokes don’t just put paint on the canvas—they express emotion in their own right. Quick, energetic strokes convey excitement or chaos, while long, flowing strokes suggest calm or contemplation. By varying the speed and direction of your strokes, you can reflect the emotional tone of your piece.

How I Use Brushstrokes to Convey Emotion:
When painting something intense or emotional, I often use quick, forceful strokes with a large brush or palette knife, letting the paint spread thickly. For more serene or melancholy pieces, I switch to longer, slower strokes that flow across the canvas, giving the painting a more peaceful vibe.

5. Contrast Bold Colours with Subtle Tones

Emotionally charged paintings often play with contrast—not just in light and dark, but also in the boldness of colour. By placing bold, saturated colours next to softer, more subdued tones, you create a visual tension that heightens the emotional impact of the painting.

Penny’s Approach:
I like to contrast bright, bold colours (like a fiery red or a vivid teal) with muted neutrals or subdued tones to create visual interest. This contrast not only makes the bold colours pop but also allows the viewer’s eyes to rest on the quieter areas of the painting, creating a dynamic emotional experience.

6. Use Colour Temperature for Emotional Impact

Colour temperature—whether a colour feels warm or cool—can drastically change the emotional tone of your painting. Warm colours like yellows, reds, and oranges can evoke feelings of warmth, passion, or urgency, while cool colours like blues and purples can create a sense of calm, melancholy, or distance.

Pro Tip:
In emotionally intense sections of a painting, I use warm colours to amplify the energy. Cool colours help tone down areas where I want to introduce calmness or space for reflection, creating a balanced emotional arc throughout the painting.

7. Don’t Be Afraid to Go Abstract

Abstraction gives you the freedom to push emotional expression beyond realism. By focusing on shapes, lines, colours, and textures rather than specific subjects, you can create an emotional landscape that invites the viewer to feel, rather than interpret. Abstract elements can capture the essence of emotion in ways that representational art sometimes can’t.

Penny’s Abstract Challenge:
When I feel like I’m too focused on details, I switch gears and go more abstract. Using bold, expressive brushstrokes and focusing on colour and texture alone allows me to channel the raw emotions of the moment without worrying about getting the “subject” right.

8. Build Emotional Focus Points

Every emotionally charged painting benefits from having a focal point that draws the viewer in. Whether it’s an area of intense colour, thick texture, or a particularly bold brushstroke, this focal point acts as an anchor, guiding the viewer through the emotional journey of the painting.

How I Build Focus:
I often use the centre or a slightly off-centre area of the canvas to concentrate the most intense colours and textures. This creates a visual and emotional focal point, drawing the viewer’s eye and grounding the piece in a central emotional theme.

Final Thoughts

Emotionally charged paintings are all about evoking feelings through colour, texture, and movement. By using bold colours, varied textures, and expressive brushstrokes, you can create artwork that speaks to the viewer on an emotional level. Whether you're aiming for intensity, calm, or something in between, using these techniques will help you create paintings that are rich with emotional depth and connection.

Until next time, Keep splashing colours!
Penny 😊🎨✨