With my sudden addiction to making greeting cards, three art classes, and an almost pathologic need to get through the 50 small painting projects book, I’ve forgotten what I love! Abstract painting… this blog is for you. These two paintings were started about three or four weeks ago and today I was determined to finish them.
The larger one 40cm x 50cm was supposed to be green, yellow, red and black, but as ever I was in a hurry and couldn’t wait for the black to dry. The first layer was really nice but the white of the canvas was showing; more black was added and it covered up some of the good stuff. The green was an acrylic ink and a little watery so when the third layer dried it was very translucent. The final layers were in Jackson Pollock style. I may work on it some more but for now it’s done.
The smaller one 25cm x 30cm was originally just yellow and black. My husband liked it but I felt it wasn’t finished. Using the JP style, I painted outside in my garden and boy was it cold... but worth it. I love this style of painting because you can always rework it and it’s never wrong.
Assignment number 3 in “Abstracts 50 Inspirational Projects” by Rolina van Vliet turned out really nice, even though my painting is a slight deviation from the monochrome colour requirements specified in the book.
To make starting the project easier, I followed the examples in the book and used red with gold outlines. After that, my own colours and marks were used. I had fun with a new tube of Pebeo relief outliner paint and may have gone a little design crazy, but I'm happy with the results. After all it’s my abstract... the book just gave me inspiration.
This study involved working from a figure sketch and drawing it abstractly in ink; even though I took a life drawing class this wasn’t easy. It also required sand, which I couldn’t find, so I used a sand & modelling paste mixture.
My first attempt didn’t look right because the ink figures weren’t anatomically correct so I started again. The second time wasn’t really successful either, so I cropped the painting and have posted it even though it's not perfect. I enjoyed using the sand mixture and liked the way ink worked with wet paint, but my figures looked funny. It's difficult to get an accurate body shape that is also abstract.
Rolina van Vliet has done it to perfection in her example on pages 52 & 53 of “Abstracts 50 Inspirational Projects”. This is a method I would really like to explore more.
Besides doing the exercises in "Vibrant Acrylics" and "Ways to learn Acrylics…" I’m now trying out another book by Rolina Van Vliets. "Abstracts 50 Inspirational Projects" has enough lessons to keep me busy; it’s very similar to her other book "Painting Abstracts ideas, projects and techniques" that I reviewed a while ago. This book has 50 studies, each on a different topic with images to use only as a guide. Rolina says it's better if you don’t have images and simply work out of your own imagination. That however, only works in her classes where she can observe and be there to answer questions. She has included some of the paintings from her students and it makes the book more interesting.
In the first study ‘Expressive painting style’ the work sequence was not for me; I didn’t like making scratch marks. I made a few changes with a putty knife and dripping paint; obsessed over it for a few days then decided the final painting was pretty good. The assignment was to create a painting that was spontaneous and the stroke directions projected action and variation. I think I achieved that:))
In Wendy's class we had a sample of flowers to paint and we could do either a real or abstract painting. I decided to paint an abstract because a real life painting, even though small, would take me forever. We learned about painting backgrounds and then letting it show through. You were not supposed to leave the under painting showing, but I did and bright pink was the result.
At home I played in photo shop to see if any improvement to the painting could be made.
The only adjustments I decided to make were to fix the flower petals, brighten the yellow and add more layers to the background. On the background another layer of magenta was glazed over, then neon red was added to darken it some more. Not sure if these changes made much difference, but I had no further inspiration. Thought about adding butterflies; but didn't have the energy to work on this painting anymore. Will file it away and possibly work on it another day.
The smaller one 25cm x 30cm was originally just yellow and black. My husband liked it but I felt it wasn’t finished. Using the JP style, I painted outside in my garden and boy was it cold... but worth it. I love this style of painting because you can always rework it and it’s never wrong.
To make starting the project easier, I followed the examples in the book and used red with gold outlines. After that, my own colours and marks were used. I had fun with a new tube of Pebeo relief outliner paint and may have gone a little design crazy, but I'm happy with the results. After all it’s my abstract... the book just gave me inspiration.
My first attempt didn’t look right because the ink figures weren’t anatomically correct so I started again. The second time wasn’t really successful either, so I cropped the painting and have posted it even though it's not perfect. I enjoyed using the sand mixture and liked the way ink worked with wet paint, but my figures looked funny. It's difficult to get an accurate body shape that is also abstract.
Rolina van Vliet has done it to perfection in her example on pages 52 & 53 of “Abstracts 50 Inspirational Projects”. This is a method I would really like to explore more.
In the first study ‘Expressive painting style’ the work sequence was not for me; I didn’t like making scratch marks. I made a few changes with a putty knife and dripping paint; obsessed over it for a few days then decided the final painting was pretty good. The assignment was to create a painting that was spontaneous and the stroke directions projected action and variation. I think I achieved that:))
The only adjustments I decided to make were to fix the flower petals, brighten the yellow and add more layers to the background. On the background another layer of magenta was glazed over, then neon red was added to darken it some more. Not sure if these changes made much difference, but I had no further inspiration. Thought about adding butterflies; but didn't have the energy to work on this painting anymore. Will file it away and possibly work on it another day.
