I can't decide if Jackson Pollock is totally overrated or actually a bit underrated. He is a house-hold name, even kids know who Jackson Pollock is. But the name Jackson Pollock, I think, it is often written off as: Oh yeah the splatter painting. Insert eye roll.

But to see a Pollock painting, to stand in front of one, is to witness a rainbow of a composition. One that strikes through the soul in an instant storm of lightning.

Pollock is famous for not painting on the canvas but by dripping paint on the work. Yet his paintings weren't just random splotches of paint thrown here and there, as seems to be thought in passing conversation. Looking at the compositions they are incredibly complex, balanced and exactly how he got the paint on canvas can still incite wonder.

According to Wiki: “Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros”. Pollock developed what he called the “drip technique” in which canvases were laid on the floor and the artist cowered himself over them, dripping paint from knives, hardened brushes, sticks, and basting syringes.

He said of the technique: “My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.”

This took a great amount of control, the control of the drip of paint to form how he wanted it to, control over the placement and movement of his body over the canvas to achieve what he wanted, and control to direct the painting in the way he wanted it to go. Nothing about it was accidental.

Take inspiration from Pollock and his action painting and get something in this style done for your own home. But when someone says something about it being paint flung on canvas, roll your eyes because you know better.