Abstract Art

Let's take some time out to put together what we've been learning about color.  We can do this by forgetting about content or representation and just think of color and values to create an abstract work of art.

There are many ways of working abstractly.  Here is a website of an abstract expressionist artist.  http://www.artistsnetwork.com/category/subject/abstract

I like to create abstracts in two different ways:  either by abstracting what I see in nature or by creating a color scheme and a mindset or emotion.

First the abstraction of nature:  In the piece above I painted a scene in Big Sur looking up the river.  I used watercolor on a yupo support.  The original painting is actually more representational and impressionistic.  For the above I photographed the painting, cropped small areas that I liked and then rotated the cropped area.  At this point I would like to do something similar in a very large scale.  Notice that I used both warm and cool colors to create a contrast as well as value.  What I liked about this particular section was the rhythm that was created across the surface.

Below is the original painting:  I could also do this with a photograph.

Another way of abstracting I like is to set myself a color grouping, then add., a challenge such as to work in an organic manner or in an architectural one. 

In this painting I set the colors as a type of monochromatic - one color plus neutrals.  Then, as I was painting, I thought about architectural shapes and worked the painting as a puzzle, adding value and color to balance.  You could turn the paper from time to time to further abstract the subject.  I worked in the same manner on the painting below using a complementary color scheme and thinking about organic images.  Neither of these two used a photo as a reference but were built as I painted.  So they were spontaneous and unplanned.