For months I had been working on botanical paintings that were fairly detailed and took a lot of planning and thought and but I wanted to be creating abstract art, painting without planning. I have never had any desire to only paint one category of art, such as landscapes, portraits, still life etc. It would be too boring and besides I would rather push myself to try different genres of art. You don’t really know what you like or dislike until you have tried it. For many years I had painted realistic paintings and artwork and really had no idea to how to begin the process of painting abstracts. I did want to better understand abstract painting and to also try it myself, but needed to figure out where to start,
The internet has made it easy to research any subject matter and this includes art. Typing a few words that describe what you are looking for and clicking will produce multitudes of selections. There are also many artists with online galleries. I begin to search and view abstract art. Some were very good, some so so and some awful. Anyone can educate themselves by merely seeking and viewing the many pieces of artwork that are out there just waiting to be found. I think the thing that has surprised me the most about my venture into abstract art is how much I enjoy it. Like most artists, I learned to paint realistic images. I notice many beginner artists falling into this same trap, thinking they are not a good artist unless they can create images that look exactly like a photo. In reality, it is much easier to just make a color copy of the image than to sit for hours trying to reproduce the image by drawing and painting it. It is fine to be inspired by a photo, scene, image, etc but the idea is to create something new with that image that is a part of you.
Abstract art offers a huge freedom of just letting your creative juices flow. The painting without planning aspect of abstract art might be confusing to those that are not artists and to those artists that paint realistic images only. The way I will explain it as it pertains to my art is that I sit down to paint and most of the time just start painting without any pre-planning as to what the painting will look like. I don’t do this every time I paint abstract art, but find it very relaxing when I do and especially if I am stressed or not feeling well. One of my favorite ways to start is to use the leftover paint on my palette. I try not to waste my paint and found that a great way of keeping acrylic paint from drying out is to cover it with aluminum foil after every use. After covering the canvas with paint, I then sit back, look at it for awhile and observing which areas need to be balanced with color or shape. Both of the paintings shown in this blog post were created with this method. Please leave a comment on the form below and sign up for my newsletter to receive special discount coupons.
Abstract Art, Painting Without Planning
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