soufflage – Dee-Ann LeBlanc

One of favorite techniques at the moment is Soufflage, which is a surrealist technique invented by Jimmy Ernst around 1940. Since I’m always caught up in my head and overthink everything, it’s nice to let go and just blow ink around to see what images develop. (Traditional Soufflage was done by blowing paint.) After that, I let it sit for a while as I decide what I see in the ink, and then build a painting around that.

I find this part of the process quite relaxing, so I hope you find watching to be relaxing as well. Here I’m showing it at 2x speed to keep the video from being 10 minutes long. Enjoy! And I’d love to hear what you see in the ink, feel free to tell me in the comments.

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“Soufflage” sounds like a cooking technique, I know. Soufflage is a Surrealist painting technique invented (or at least named) by painter Jimmy Ernst back in 1940. In French, “soufflage” means “blowing,” and that’s basically all you need to know about this technique. Jimmy Ernst blew paint on the canvas to create shapes free of the conscious, rational mind. I blow ink, instead.

Once I have the ink done to my satisfaction, I decide what image I’m seeing, and then build an illustrative mixed media painting around it. I like the process of discovery involved in not controlling everything from the outset.

If you’re ever art blocked or want to try something different, I highly recommend looking into the wide variety of techniques that the Surrealists (both writers and artists) used. There’s a number of weird and interesting options!

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Video: The Soufflage Process

About Soufflage