Abstraction is Heaven

 

on Fabriano 300# quarter sheet

This painting started out as a plein air on my patio hoping to capture my azaleas in full bloom. I was tittering away (bored out of my mind!) with a simple drawing and then laying in some color. I was uninspired to say the least. Then it hit me why am I trying to depict these flowers in a realistic way when I prefer not to? I was bored out of my mind trying to get the look of realism in these flowers. If you are wondering if I am making excuses, I can have done it: Daring Watercolor #7 way too fussy for me. As I painted that iris, I never felt the creative zing that I love to paint with.

I decided that saturated wet on wet was my technique of choice for this painting. I discovered something magical in this session. I think it would be easier to outline what I did.

• I wet both sides of paper using a plexi-glass as my surface, it sticks like glue. My surface stays workable up to 2 1/2, this session was an hour long.
• I always use fresh paint from the tube, your colors are more vivid.
• I constantly turned my board around and I brushed on color only where I knew it belonged, intuitive painting through the entire process.
• I kept turning and turning the board seeing it as a puzzle rather than what I “should” do.
• I applied colors only when I knew what belonged at that particular area. I actually “see” the color, sometimes I feel the color should go there, all intuitive.
• I didn’t paint this with a particular orientation in mind.
• After the painting was finished, I turned the painting around and around until the correct orientation revealed itself.

I truly liked this process because it was as though I tricked my mind in reacting and accessing the creative in me rather than relying on my left brain for design decisions. I have an inner design and color scheme that often befuddles me. It will often turn negative and I fight against the inner critic that says something isn’t balanced. Then I do the hard work of trying to balance a painting or make it better. Sometimes it takes relying on the creative intuition for the solution, it was easy for me to tap into that with this technique.

*A word about photos. The photos on my blog are mine, taken by me and copying them would be stealing from me. If you find a photo that you would like to copy or use, I request that you ask me for permission and I expect you to give me full credit for my own photo. Thank you so very much.