Thanks to many of you who have helped me identify my new found pile of brushes I am learning which is what. I carefully chose six brushes from the bucket containing 230 of them.
Knowing and courage to act are two different things. I had nothing in mind, no landscape or flower or object to paint. Nothing in front of me. Just brushes and paint and a tightly stretched canvas.
I opted for acrylics simply because they are easier to clean up. They dry fast and suit my impetuous nature. I can be quick about it.
I don't have a color chart or color wheel or whatever they are called and am not sure how they are used.
I am not a student of this art. My entire life experience looking at paintings, the time spent in museums and art galleries could be consolidated into one lazy afternoon. I am far more interested in the history of an artist, what is going through his brain, his aches and pains, joys and sorrows, than I am in his end production.
What kinds of things cause art to be produced?
I think for me it is just a challenge. Like elephant shooting in Africa or climbing tall mountains, running marathons. I want to know whether I can do it.
I know I can't draw within the lines, never have been able to. I don't see that way. I know color has weight. I know that shapes can control the direction of a painting, what is up and what is down. I know that the eye wants focus. We search for a beginning and an end in a painting. We want it to be like a story.
We have a tendency to read a painting from left to right and I wonder whether the Chinese read them from right to left? And there is always a spot, a place of hesitation where we linger. Depth maybe. We want to be drawn into a painting.
I have decided that paintings grow. Some of it is consequential. Enough even that I wonder whether there are any accidents to painting? Maybe a first one, some kind of mistake that once present demands another for balance? A Pollack "drip" demands another? for balance? for weight? for proof of intention?
My canvas, my 150 foot roll is tent making material, tightly woven, waterproof, a military dark green, almost black. Stretched like a buffalo hide on a metal rack I began by gessoing it white. One good thick coat and the weave of the canvas disappeared, offering me a tied down captive smooth surface to play with.
It is not finished. It will never be finished. It has become an experiment, my canvas of ideas. It has become the stretching and exercising one does before the Marathon. It is practice. Discovery.
So like a mad chef in a dirty cafe I added essence of this and that, maybe tossing too much into a bowl
giving a new meaning to "my cup runnith over". Yes, I spilled paint everywhere! I am thinking this is like a cake and needs frosting? My intention was to create a background. I have not yet begun the painting.
You do not have to be polite. Nice legs! or you could say, it sure is big!
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| two and a half feet by five feet |
Oh I will do another one and this one again. I am not discouraged yet. I have a lot more paint, brushes I haven't tried and a whole roll of canvas!
More stuff is HERE
5 comments:
I don't think you can make mistakes when doing abstract. It's what you see, feel right? Colors look good and you had fun - what else do you need. I've never done abstract.... I can't, don't know why ~ guess I just like to know what I'm painting.
While I've never been a fan of abstract art, I will say, Jer, that I like the textural look in that teal and yellow area. And on blogs, I often read of artists having happy accidents.
I love the mad chef reference and that your OK with experimenting, after all that's what it is in the beginning before we know exactly where we are going.
By the way Nice Legs. ;)
alright JC you have made a start.. Abstract? you know someone who is an abstract painter. ! sure ..
You've overcome the hardest part. that is staring at that blank canvas, or paper.. and you've put some marks onto it... YOUR PAINTING!!
Right now? you just need to play with those brushes, paint and canvas.. It's not like welding ..
Oh no .... but remember when you didn't know how to weld?? BJ
I tried an acrylic painting but the stuff dries too fast for me. I don't know if my painting will ever get finished either. I think I prefer watercolors.
I can't say whether your background is good or bad. It's colorful but that is neither good nor bad either. It all depends on what else you do with it! Just keep playing till you feel done. Whatever you do, don't throw it out if or when you decide it isn't going to work. So often we do that only to figure out what to do with it later that would make it a successful painting. Most importantly, just have some fun.
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