Halima Washington: Exquisitely Textured Oil Paintings

Imagine yourself frosting a cake with a knife—every sweep of your hand delicately piling the icing into lovely, layered swirls. Fascinatingly, Halima Washington’s paintings have some of that same texture, resulting in sweet images of landscapes, still lifes and people.

Currently living in Hollywood, California, Halima has built her career through teaching and showcasing her work on a daily painting blog. She has shown her work in galleries from Atlanta to England, but now focuses primarily on selling online.

Halima admits that she uses a lot of paint. To create her exquisite paintings she blocks in quick color sketches with a brush, then finishes by plastering, scraping, and layering with a palette knife. In the end, it’s almost more sculpture than painting.

In the piece below, Halima controls the shapes left by her knife to emphasize petals, leaves, and glass. But even the background contains a beautiful texture.

Halima always begins with dark colors, then she moves “towards the light”. You can actually see this in the snowy scene below, since the lighter areas are noticeably raised off the canvas, having been painted last.

And, as if drawing bold still lifes and striking landscapes weren’t enough, take a look at Halima’s ability to capture human expression.

By focusing on the application of the paint, she is able to portray a woman’s face with a solidness and intensity that is rarely felt in a portrait. Pair this with bright, clear colors and you have an image that is breathtaking.

To see more of Halima’s textured paintings, please visit HalimaWashington.com