Elspeth McLean is an Australian award-winning artist whose passion for colour and detail has evolved into a unique style of painting she describes as “Dotillism”.
In what she calls Mandala Stones, McLean collects beautiful beach stones and uses them as her canvas to create intensely colourful and intricate artworks entirely out of dots. Elspeth only uses acrylic paints and a paintbrush to create her beautiful works, sealing the stones with varnish to protect them.
The artist’s Mandala Stones literally sell out within seconds of posting them on her Etsy page. In addition to the stones she also does traditional canvas paintings and you can see much more of her work at the links below.
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What do you use to create the dots?
“I use paint brushes! Just your average (but very small) paint brush. I prefer size 0 sable brush. The secret is in keeping the brush is good condition, nice and round, no straying hairs and the hairs nice and straight. The creation of dots is all about how much paint is loaded onto the brush and then the pressure as to which it is applied.”
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How do you get the colours so bright and bold?
“Many many layers of paint! On every part of my painting there is a minimum of 2 layers of paint, and up sometimes 4- even six! This creates the vibrancy! I also apply the dots very thick so they retain their shape and create a 3d affect.”
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