A New Direction

I feel like I'm falling down on the job as a blogger. I've just been very busy lately with school projects and the post-hurricane fun of trying to get roofers to call me back. I pledge to get back into the routine blogging habit!

I recently tried my hand at abstract painting and really enjoyed it. This is my painting that I will call "Untitled" until I come up with a brilliant, insightful title for it. I did this painting as part of a class assignment in which we chose three painters and did paintings in each of their styles using the same still life for all three. I chose Joan Mitchell, Roy Lichtenstein, and Georgia O'Keeffe. While Lichtenstein and O'Keeffe were pretty straight forward, the Mitchell painting was quite challenging. Joan Mitchell was part of the "second" abstract expressionist school of painters and was influenced by Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline among others. Her paintings were frequently based on natural landscapes and her style evolved many times over the course of her career. My charge was to work in the wholely abstract style of Mitchell while still making reference to a "realist" still life.

Forget those people who say things like, "Geez, what a bunch of crap. I could paint that." They are wrong. Abstract painting isn't as easy as it seems. What looks thrown together is usually very much planned out. Ideas for abstracts are frequently grounded in realism such as the figure, landscapes, and still life. Basing an abstract painting on something realistic definitely makes the task less daunting. For my painting, I focused on the shapes of three different items in a still life and improvised from there. I painted gesturallywithout laboring over details, quickly slapping paint onto the canvas. I also taped my biggest paint brush to the end of a long stick which gave me even less control and hence more freedom.

While I enjoy painting realistically and appreciate the skill involved, I have a much greater appreciation for painting abstractly and look forward to exploring it more. Skill still plays a big part in abstract painting, but without the chains of making something look "real," the creative well to draw from is boundless.