Sunday, August 09, 2009
Abstraction in Acrylic
The Abstract Workshop I was taking with Kassem Amoudi at the Main Line Art Center is complete now. Amoudi teaches at the Penna Acad of Fine Arts and a number of other places, like the Main Line Art Center. I still don’t have a great interest in abstract art, but taking this course has been a useful experience. It has freed me up a bit to think about different ways to apply paint, and to just let things happen. And I have gained some appreciation of this art form - ultimately I think my work might go in the direction of combining abstraction and realism together in some way. Dunno.
The other thing is that this workshop was my first attempt to use acrylic paints. I found that I don’t like them - probably because I cut my teeth with oil paint. The acrylics in pure form dry too fast, even on the pallet, and if you dilute them they get all thin and watery. I’m sure this is largely a matter of technique and familiarity, but I like all the blending and the buttery feel of oil paints.
Amoudi really promotes the idea of starting an abstract painting with no object or goal in mind. Just let it happen and play with it as it develops - and think Outside the Box, to use that hoary, timeworn cliche. Although I am not enthusiastic about this approach, I really can bear to look at some of the things I came up with in the Workshop, that I rather like. (And then, of course, there are also others that I have painted over already.)
Anyway, to start off. This was my very first attempt at an abstract painting. It features lines of unintelligible script, and that seemed fitting, since what was happening on the canvas was equally unintelligible to me:
Then, this one started with red, white and blue bands. Then I saw another painter making lines by squeezing paint directly from tubes. So I did that too, and added a splash or two of color and let it drip some. Dripping seems to be a much-used technique in the abstract world. Feels like a cliche to me, though.
No.2: acrylic on 36”x24” 300# watercolor paper
We were at the shore over a weekend, and I did a sketch on the beach. I wanted to catch the way the horizon got lost in a beigey haze of sand and spray so you couldn’t see where beach ended and sky began, although the perspective lines of beach, dunes and houses and water all led to the same perspective point. I thought it looked rather abstract, and decided to develop the idea as a painting in the Workshop. So:
Amoudi didn’t like this sort-of beach scene because I’d started out with a specific idea I wanted to develop and he says that makes it stiff and uninteresting. I guess I sort-of agree with him, but I think it still has possibilities. I may work on it some more. I’d thought it might end up with some color bands, sort of Rothko-ish, but it didn’t go that way.
Finally: I actually like this one, and I’ve added it to the hallway gallery outside my apartment. That dark base color covered an earlier, particularly ugly abstract attempt of mine. That had left it with a vague snakelike figure that then became the base of the added lines and color splashes, here.
No.4: acrylic on 14”x18” canvasboard
The other thing is that this workshop was my first attempt to use acrylic paints. I found that I don’t like them - probably because I cut my teeth with oil paint. The acrylics in pure form dry too fast, even on the pallet, and if you dilute them they get all thin and watery. I’m sure this is largely a matter of technique and familiarity, but I like all the blending and the buttery feel of oil paints.
Amoudi really promotes the idea of starting an abstract painting with no object or goal in mind. Just let it happen and play with it as it develops - and think Outside the Box, to use that hoary, timeworn cliche. Although I am not enthusiastic about this approach, I really can bear to look at some of the things I came up with in the Workshop, that I rather like. (And then, of course, there are also others that I have painted over already.)
Anyway, to start off. This was my very first attempt at an abstract painting. It features lines of unintelligible script, and that seemed fitting, since what was happening on the canvas was equally unintelligible to me:
No.1: acrylic on 3’x2’ unprimed canvas
Then, this one started with red, white and blue bands. Then I saw another painter making lines by squeezing paint directly from tubes. So I did that too, and added a splash or two of color and let it drip some. Dripping seems to be a much-used technique in the abstract world. Feels like a cliche to me, though.
No.2: acrylic on 36”x24” 300# watercolor paper
We were at the shore over a weekend, and I did a sketch on the beach. I wanted to catch the way the horizon got lost in a beigey haze of sand and spray so you couldn’t see where beach ended and sky began, although the perspective lines of beach, dunes and houses and water all led to the same perspective point. I thought it looked rather abstract, and decided to develop the idea as a painting in the Workshop. So:
Sketch: Graphite (#B-2 pencil) in 5.5”x8.5” sketchbook.
Painting, No.3: acrylic on 3’x3’ unprimed canvas.
Amoudi didn’t like this sort-of beach scene because I’d started out with a specific idea I wanted to develop and he says that makes it stiff and uninteresting. I guess I sort-of agree with him, but I think it still has possibilities. I may work on it some more. I’d thought it might end up with some color bands, sort of Rothko-ish, but it didn’t go that way.
Finally: I actually like this one, and I’ve added it to the hallway gallery outside my apartment. That dark base color covered an earlier, particularly ugly abstract attempt of mine. That had left it with a vague snakelike figure that then became the base of the added lines and color splashes, here.
No.4: acrylic on 14”x18” canvasboard
