Top 15 'Rule-Breaking' Modern Art Styles to make for beginners who can't draw a straight line
Have you ever looked at a blank canvas with a mix of longing and dread? You have this urge to create, to splash some color around, but then a little voice whispers, "You can't even draw a straight line." It's a phrase that has extinguished more creative sparks than any other, a self-imposed barrier that keeps so many people from experiencing the pure joy of making art.
Well, I'm here to tell you that this 'rule' about straight lines is one of the most boring, outdated ideas in the art world. The greatest revolutions in modern art happened when artists decided to throw the rulebook out the window. They embraced chaos, emotion, texture, and ideas over photorealistic precision. This is fantastic news for us, because it means the most exciting, expressive, and frankly, fun art styles are perfectly suited for people who believe they "can't draw."
Forget trying to sketch a perfect portrait or a realistic landscape. Today, we're diving into the messy, exhilarating world of 'rule-breaking' modern art. These 15 styles don't just forgive a wobbly hand—they celebrate it. They are about the process, the feeling, and the happy accidents. So, grab a cup of tea, silence that inner critic, and let's find the perfect art style to unleash your hidden creativity.
1. Abstract Expressionism: The Art of Action
You’ve likely seen a Jackson Pollock painting and thought, "My kid could do that!" That’s the beauty of it. Abstract Expressionism isn't about rendering a subject; it's about capturing the act of creation itself. Often called "action painting," this style involves dripping, splattering, flinging, and pouring paint onto a canvas, usually one laid flat on the floor. The final piece is a record of your movements, your energy, and your emotions at that moment.
This is the ultimate permission slip to be messy and impulsive. There are no mistakes, only marks. The goal isn't to paint something, but to simply paint. It’s a physical, almost therapeutic process that’s more like a dance than a drawing lesson. Forget brushes if you want—use sticks, trowels, or even your hands. The freedom is intoxicating.
Get Started Tip: Lay an old sheet or plastic tarp on the floor. Place your canvas in the middle. Use inexpensive house paint or thinned-down acrylics in cups. Put on some music that matches your mood and just start moving around the canvas, letting the paint drip and fly. Don't think, just do.
2. Color Field Painting: Painting with Emotion
If the chaos of action painting feels like too much, its calmer cousin, Color Field painting, might be for you. Pioneered by artists like Mark Rothko, this style focuses on vast, solid blocks of color. The idea is to let pure color create an emotional and immersive experience for the viewer. There are no figures, no objects, just deeply saturated hues that bleed into one another.
This style is perfect for beginners because it's all about color relationships and simple shapes. You don’t need to draw anything complex. Your main tools are a wide brush and your intuition for what colors feel right together. It’s a meditative practice that teaches you to appreciate the subtle power and mood of different shades.
Get Started Tip: Choose two or three colors that you feel a connection to. Use a large, flat brush to apply them in big rectangular blocks. Don't worry about perfect edges; let them be soft and feathery, allowing the colors to gently overlap and interact. The goal is to create a mood, not a perfect geometric painting.
3. Fluid Art (Pour Painting): Let Gravity Be Your Brush
Fluid art is a mesmerizing process that has taken the internet by storm, and for good reason. It requires zero drawing ability. The technique involves mixing acrylic paints with a pouring medium to make them more fluid, then pouring them onto a canvas and tilting it to let the colors flow and interact. The results are stunning, organic patterns that look like marble, galaxies, or microscopic cells.
Every single pour is unique and unpredictable, which is part of the magic. You can control the colors you choose, but you have to surrender control to gravity and fluid dynamics to create the final piece. It's a fantastic lesson in letting go of perfectionism and embracing the unexpected.
Get Started Tip: Start with a "dirty pour." In a single cup, layer your chosen fluid acrylic colors one by one. Place your canvas face down on top of the cup, then confidently flip them both over. Lift the cup and watch the paint flood the canvas. Tilt the canvas gently in different directions to guide the flow until you're happy with the composition.
4. Impasto: The Joy of Thick, Textured Paint
Why paint a flat image when you can build a sculpture out of paint? Impasto is a technique where paint is laid on an area of the surface in very thick layers, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Think of Vincent van Gogh's swirling, textured skies. The paint itself becomes a three-dimensional object.
This is a wonderfully tactile and forgiving technique. You're not concerned with smooth blending or fine details. Instead, you're focused on building texture and form. You can use a palette knife to slather paint on like you're frosting a cake, creating peaks and valleys that catch the light in beautiful ways. It's expressive, bold, and incredibly satisfying.
Get Started Tip: Buy a tube of acrylic or oil "heavy body" paint or a gel medium to mix with your existing paints to thicken them. Use a palette knife instead of a brush. Scoop up a generous amount of paint and apply it directly to the canvas. Experiment with pressing, scraping, and dabbing to create different textures.
5. Geometric Abstraction: Embrace the Tape
So you can't draw a straight line? Who cares! With painter's tape, you don't have to. Geometric Abstraction uses shapes like squares, circles, triangles, and lines to create a composition. Artists like Piet Mondrian created iconic works using only primary colors and a grid.
This style is a fantastic entry point because it replaces freehand skill with simple tools. You can plan out your design by laying down strips of painter's tape to create crisp, clean-edged shapes. Then you just paint inside the taped-off sections. The final reveal, when you peel off the tape, is one of the most satisfying moments in art-making.
Get Started Tip: Use low-tack painter's tape to create a design of intersecting lines and shapes on your canvas. Press the edges down firmly. Paint each section with a different solid color. Wait for the paint to be almost dry (but not completely), then slowly peel the tape away at a 45-degree angle to reveal your perfectly sharp lines.
6. Dada-Inspired Collage: The Art of Nonsense
The Dada movement was a protest against the logic and reason of the modern world. Its art was often playful, absurd, and nonsensical. Collage was a favorite medium, where artists would cut up images and text from newspapers and magazines and reassemble them in bizarre and unexpected ways.
There are absolutely no rules here. Your goal is to create something surprising, funny, or thought-provoking by combining unrelated images. Can a fish fly through the sky while wearing a top hat? In your collage, it can. This is a great way to explore composition and storytelling without ever picking up a pencil.
Get Started Tip: Gather a stack of old magazines, newspapers, and junk mail. Don't look for anything specific at first. Just cut out images, words, and textures that catch your eye. Then, start playing with the pieces on a piece of paper or cardboard, arranging them until a strange and wonderful new picture emerges. Glue them down.
7. Monochromatic Painting: Simplify Your Palette
Sometimes, the sheer number of color choices can be paralyzing for a beginner. Monochromatic painting solves this by limiting you to a single color. You create an entire piece using only the different tints (adding white), shades (adding black), and tones (adding grey) of one hue.
This limitation is incredibly freeing. It forces you to focus on value, contrast, and composition instead of worrying about whether your colors "go together." You can create surprisingly deep and complex images with just one tube of paint, plus black and white. It’s a brilliant exercise that sharpens your artistic eye.
Get Started Tip: Pick a color you love, like a deep blue. On your palette, mix that blue with varying amounts of white to create a range of light blues. Mix it with black to create dark, moody navys. Now, create a simple abstract painting or a landscape using only these variations of blue.
8. Found Object Assemblage: Art from "Junk"
This is basically 3D collage. Instead of paper, you use found objects—bits of wood, old keys, broken toys, bottle caps, fabric scraps, electronic parts—and assemble them into a new form. This art style challenges the very idea of what art can be made from, proving that beauty and meaning can be found anywhere.
Assemblage is a treasure hunt. The first step is to collect interesting "junk." Then, you arrange the objects on a sturdy base, like a piece of wood or a shadow box, playing with how the shapes and textures fit together. It’s about seeing the artistic potential in the discarded and overlooked.
Get Started Tip: Go for a walk and collect small, interesting objects: a unique rock, a rusted bottle cap, a fallen leaf, a piece of sea glass. Arrange your treasures in a small box or on a piece of cardboard. Glue them down to create a small, personal sculpture that tells a story.
9. Automatic Drawing: Let Your Subconscious Take Over
Rooted in Surrealism, automatic drawing is about shutting off your conscious mind and letting your hand move freely across the page. It's a form of doodling with intent. You don't try to draw anything in particular; you just make lines, loops, and scribbles without judgment.
After you've filled the page with these random marks, you can then go back and look for shapes or figures that have emerged accidentally. You can then choose to define or color them in, turning your subconscious scribbles into a finished piece of art. This is a powerful way to bypass the fear of the blank page. As I, Goh Ling Yong, often say to my students, your first mark is the hardest, and this technique makes that first mark meaningless and therefore, easy.
Get Started Tip: Grab a pen and paper. Close your eyes or look away from the page. Let your hand move randomly for a full minute. Now open your eyes and examine the web of lines you've created. Do you see a face? An animal? A strange landscape? Use a highlighter or colored pencil to bring out the shapes you discover.
10. Stencil Art: Street Art Style for Your Canvas
Think of artists like Banksy. Stencils are a core tool of street art because they allow for the quick creation of a clear, repeatable image without needing to be a master illustrator. You can use this same "cheat" for your own art. You can buy pre-made stencils or easily make your own.
The beauty of stencils is that the hard work of creating the shape is already done. Your creative job is to decide where to place it and what colors to use. You can apply paint with a sponge, a brush, or even a spray can (in a well-ventilated area!) to create sharp, graphic images.
Get Started Tip: Find a simple shape online (like a star, a bird silhouette, or a leaf). Print it onto thick cardstock and carefully cut it out with a craft knife to create your stencil. Place the stencil on your canvas and use a sponge to dab paint over it. Lift the stencil to reveal your perfect shape. Try layering different stencils and colors.
11. Textural Art: More Feeling, Less Drawing
This style is all about how the surface of the artwork feels. Instead of just using paint, you mix other materials into it or apply them directly to the canvas to create a rich, tactile surface. This could be sand, coffee grounds, sawdust, or fabric. You can also use thick mediums like modeling paste or gesso.
The focus is entirely on texture, not on drawing a perfect picture. You can create an entire abstract piece just by varying the texture from smooth to rough, high to low. It's a multi-sensory art form that's incredibly fun and experimental to create.
Get Started Tip: Get a small canvas and some acrylic modeling paste. Use a palette knife to spread the paste on the canvas. While it's still wet, you can press things into it (like string or small pebbles) or use tools (like a fork or a comb) to create patterns and grooves. Once dry, you can paint over it to highlight the texture you've created.
12. Frottage (Rubbing): Discovering Hidden Textures
Another Surrealist favorite, frottage is the simple technique of taking a rubbing from a textured surface. You probably did this as a kid with a leaf and a crayon. Artists like Max Ernst elevated this into a serious art form, using rubbings from wood grain, woven fabric, and rough stone as the starting point for fantastical landscapes.
This is a wonderful way to interact with your environment and discover the hidden patterns all around you. You're not creating the texture yourself; you're capturing it. It requires no drawing skill, only a curious eye for interesting surfaces.
Get Started Tip: Place a thin piece of paper over a textured surface (a wooden floor, a coin, a cheese grater, a manhole cover). Take the paper off a crayon or use the side of a pencil lead and rub it across the paper. The texture will magically appear. You can then cut up these textured papers and use them in a collage.
13. Drip Art: Controlled Chaos
While similar to the splattering of Abstract Expressionism, drip art can be a more controlled and deliberate process. Here, you use gravity to create lines. By loading a brush or stick with thinned paint and letting it drip down a tilted canvas, you can create compelling compositions of vertical lines.
The wobbly, imperfect nature of the drip is the entire point. You can play with the thickness of the paint, the angle of the canvas, and the colors you use to create different effects. It’s simple, graphically striking, and a great way to practice composition and color theory.
Get Started Tip: Prop a canvas up almost vertically. Thin some acrylic paint with a little water until it has the consistency of ink. Load up a brush, hold it at the top of the canvas, and just let the paint drip down. Experiment with different colors and starting points.
14. Mixed Media Journaling: A Playground with No Rules
An art journal is a private space where you can play without any pressure for the final result to be a "masterpiece." In mixed media journaling, you combine everything and anything: writing, drawing, painting, collage, stamping, and found objects.
It’s the perfect place for the beginner who "can't draw" because there is no wrong way to do it. You can smear paint with your fingers on one page and glue in a ticket stub and a photograph on the next. It’s a visual diary and a laboratory for creative experiments. I truly believe that a practice like this, something Goh Ling Yong's blog champions, can be a cornerstone of a lifelong creative habit.
Get Started Tip: Get a sturdy, blank notebook. Start by creating a background on a page by wiping excess paint from your brushes or smudging some ink. Then, glue in a word you cut from a magazine. Add a sticker. Write a line from a song you like. There's no plan; just add one layer at a time.
15. Digital Glitch Art: Breaking the Code
For a truly modern, rule-breaking style, why not break technology itself? Glitch art is the practice of using or creating digital errors for aesthetic purposes. This can be done by corrupting the data of an image file, a process called "databending," or by using apps designed to mimic these effects.
The results are unpredictable, fractured, and often stunningly beautiful. You're not drawing anything; you're using algorithms and digital decay as your creative partners. It’s a perfect metaphor for embracing imperfection in the digital age.
Get Started Tip: You don't need to be a coder. There are many free apps and websites (like PhotoMosh) that allow you to upload a photo and apply dozens of glitch effects with the click of a button. Take a simple photo and see how many ways you can artistically "destroy" it.
Your Turn to Break the Rules
The idea that you need to draw a straight line to be an artist is a myth. Art is about expression, exploration, and connection—not technical perfection. Each of these 15 styles offers a unique doorway into the world of creativity, a world where your unique perspective is far more valuable than a steady hand.
The only rule now is to start. Pick one style from this list that sparks your curiosity. Just one. Gather a few simple materials this weekend and give it a try. Don't aim for a masterpiece; aim for the fun of the process. Aim to make a mess. Aim to surprise yourself.
I would absolutely love to see what you create. Share your work on Instagram and tag me! Let's fill the world with beautiful, messy, rule-breaking art. Now go make something
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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