What Tools Did Jackson Pollock Paint With?

Jackson Pollock was best known for his mesmerising ‘drip’ paintings and for his technique of drizzling his paint over the canvas – without actually making contact with his surface. But just what equipment did he use to drip, pour and throw his paint? I previously discussed what he painted with; now below I briefly run through some of the tools he used to dispense his paint.

Jackson Pollock created his drip paintings using a combination of hardened brushes, wooden sticks, syringes and other equipment; as well as applying paint directly from the tube or pouring it straight from the can – and occasionally even using his hands.

However seemingly spontaneous and random his paintings may appear, Jackson Pollock’s choice of apparatus was in fact a measured and calculated affair. He had mastered control of his different types of paint and media and their properties – developing an intuitive feel for the tool and motion required to achieve his desired effect with each layer of splattered or poured paint.

Brushing up on Pollock’s technique

Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings were created using a variety of tools and equipment, including hardened brushes, wooden sticks and syringes, as well as applying paint directly from the tube or can. Pollock would harden conventional paintbrushes by allowing them to dry, uncleaned, in cans of paint; the oil, enamel and other elements of the paint would solidify and produce a rigid tool with which to fling paint from a firm tip. Sometimes brushes would even be left to dry and become solidified within entire cans of paint.

One of Pollock’s most conventional techniques would be to dip a hardened brush into a can of liquid paint (such as house paint) and then move the brush over the top of the laid-out canvas in swirling motions; then returning the brush to the can to reload it with paint ready to go again (this technique is essentially how I paint my own By Kerwin portrait action paintings, complete with a hardened brush). Pollock would frequently vary the speed at which the brush was moved – often starting slowly and then speeding up once he found his rhythm with a painting – which determined the thickness of the lines of paint produced on the canvas.

A sticking point

An alternative technique would see Pollock use a wooden stick with paint from a can being poured down one side of the side onto the canvas. He would also vary the speed and angle of the pour, so that sometimes it would produce a thin dribble of paint or sometimes a puddle on the canvas. He also used syringes to squirt paint and achieve a drastically different motion to his other methods. He would also pour paint directly from a can onto the canvas, or squeeze it directly from a tube in the case of his more viscous oil paints.

Pollock also occasionally used his hands to apply paint, making handprints onto the canvas and actually making contact with his surface. One example of handprints being used is in Number 1A, 1948, which feature in combination with layers of dripped and poured paint. It is thought that Pollock’s handprinted method was derivative from earlier, primitive forms of Native American Indian art (this was a source of inspiration that Pollock drew from – either consciously or subconsciously – throughout his entire artistic career, stemming from his early childhood and upbringing in Cody, Wyoming).

How did Jackson Pollock paint in his earlier years?

Like most artists, Jackson Pollock did not arrive immediately at his signature style of art and painting technique. His ‘drip’ era, beginning in the mid-to-late-1940s, was actually a relatively short part of his artistic career. (He even had different phases of drip painting; after his signature ‘all-over’ period of painting he moved onto his series of ‘black painting’, before reintroducing figurative elements into his action-painted works. Before the end of his life he also effectively abandoned this style of painting, too, along with abstaining from painting for a period before his premature death in 1956 aged just 44.)

Pollock began painting in a more conventional brush-and-easel method, beginning with countryside landscapes and then moving onto more figurative subjects and then gradually to a more abstract and expressive style of painting. Like many aspiring artists and budding students, he experimented and practiced with a wide range of techniques and painting styles as part of his education, alongside drawing and other three-dimensional forms of art (Pollock himself first aspired to be a sculpture rather than a painter). He also painted on homeware items including ceramics and tea towels; his art teacher said these would be easier to sell in post-depression era New York of the 1930s.

Jackson Pollock’s artistic career followed a fascinating trajectory, and knowing his psyche and personality is to understand that each stage of evolution in his painting technique was brought about by an intense desire to revolt and rebel against the conventions of his previous style. In hindsight, it was perhaps inevitable that having become progressively looser and more abstract in his choice of subjects and finished paintings, that Pollock would eventually do away with the use of paintbrushes (at least used in the traditional sense) altogether.

“Pop culture in a chaotic Jackson Pollock style” – BBC

My own style of Jackson Pollock-inspired acrylic paintings are painted using a hardened brush dipped into a cup of mixed and thinned-out paint. I’ve used the same brush (at the time of writing) to produce all of my paintings over the first four years of my By Kerwin portrait paintings. I do sometimes use thinner brushes when I want really fine lines of a certain colour in my paintings.

My own action painting technique

I have not yet poured directly from a cup of paint onto the surface of one of my paintings – although when I mix a really good shade of paint I do sometimes end up flinging the cup over my canvas in order to empty as much of it out of the cup as possible (as trying to mix the exact same shade again is often an impossible feat!). This is usually early-on in a painting though, as by the last few layers I have to be a bit more strategic about the placement of my layers in order to achieve the right balance of colours.

Maybe in the future I will experiments with using other tools to transfer my acrylic layers onto the canvas (I’d be more tempted to do so on a larger canvas size), so watch this space!

What else would you like to know about Jackson Pollock’s action painting technique and art style? Let me know – I’m always curious about the questions people have about my art and this method of painting.

My full range of music-themed, handpainted, Jackson Pollock-inspired pop art portraits can be viewed at www.bykerwin.com. All of my paintings are available as luxury canvas prints, with fast worldwide delivery. Which is your favourite? Follow my progress on Facebook.