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| The Evolution of a Painting......Losing the Detail One Step at a Time all available in my etsy shop |
I went down into my studio with a plan. I had given myself an assignment for the weekend. I call it Friday Fun. I allow myself to paint for the sake of play and experimentation. There is no pressure to perform or do a 'good' painting. I give myself an assignment....something new to explore. But that is just a rough guide.
Today I learned an important lesson. Play is important! But it is also good to let go and let the play and experimentation evolve. LISTEN to the voice in your head that is asking you the question 'What if?'
I went into the studio with a plan but the plan quickly changed and I gave myself permission to change direction.
My goal was to do paintings that broke my self imposed rule of no blending. I did a couple of these blended paintings but they quickly evolved into paintings with detail. I enjoyed the early stages of the blended paintings. It raised the question "What if I did a painting and just left it in that early state....What if I tried to do a more abstracted landscape?"
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| The first painting ....it started me wondering What If? |
I started down this road to more abstraction in the landscape and below are the results. I am not sure where it will take me but I do know I was filled with this wonderful feeling of excitement and anticipation for the next painting while doing these little studies. I'm glad I listened and I am glad I played.
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| The second version has less detail 8x8 pastel $75 |
Below you can see how I tried to add less and less detail in each painting. (top left to bottom right)
"Children smile 400 times a day... adults 15 times. Children laugh 150 times a day... adults 6 times per day. Children play 4-6 hours a day... adults only 20 minutes a day. What's happened?" Robert Holden
Wonderful lesson, Karen. I try to do the same thing, and sometimes I make it, and others I get further than I wish! Thanks for showing your progress of each one getting more abstracted. Very good work!
ReplyDeleteThanks Marsha! It was fun and oh so hard not to want to put in the grass!! :0
ReplyDeleteI follow your blog every day from England (when are you going to do a workshop here ?!) and I love these abstracted landscapes. I really hope you pursue this kind of work and show us lots more of it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this great idea to do a fun Friday! I am going to try to do this exercise and hopefully it will add some looser technique into my artistic journey in pastels.
ReplyDeleteReally great lesson, Karen! I particularly love your final abstract--blocks of pure color with a few black(?)lines. For me, abstracts are difficult. This lesson teaches
ReplyDeleteme a way to approach them & confirms that abstracts use all the principles of representational art. Thank you so, so much for this wonderful blog.
Great post! I hope you do more and shar them as well!!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post and fun! Thanks!
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