30 in 30 - Day 24 - Abstract Study - Title Wanted

6x6

Oil on Gessoed Board

I did this study today.  Lines and shapes...with something in mind.   I just don't know how abstract or obvious it is?  What do you see?  Can you help me with a title?

30 in 30 - Day 23 - Seed Study

8x10

oil on linen on panel
To Bid

This is a semi-abstract study that I feel really happy about!  I like the repetition of color and the varied design of the seeds.  I struggle with an all-out abstract approach.  This seems to be the only way I've figured out how I can approach painting abstractly.  I have to start with something tangible, a concept, idea, objects etc. and then translate it into visual symbols...I can't just start painting out of nowhere...That is too much of an unknown.  This one was the third in a series of paintings on the theme Seeds.

30 in 30 - Day 7 - Playing on abstract

Decided to paint some abstracts this weekend and started on a few small (of course:) 6x6s to just see where it would take me.  I have no idea why the process of painting abstractly is so difficult?  It just seems like the process is so different than what I do when I paint in a representational way.  Do I start without knowing what to do and just go for it?...or do I take a concept, or something representational and figure out an abstract way of expressing it?  The second choice at least gives me a road-map...which I need!

 I did a few of my experiments just putting down colors I enjoy - turquoise and orange - in a random way.  I will post these again after I've worked on simplifying the design and the colors.   Figuring out what to take away, which is just as important as what you put in they tell me:-) and maybe that is part of the process with abstract painting. Put it down and edit, edit edit...

After these I painted three more, trying to simplify an experience down to just shapes and colors...again, another challenge...I will post those also when they are more resolved.

Happy Painting!

The Cycle of Growth - Day 5

 8x10

Oil on Canvasboard

Day 5

30 Paintings in 30 Days

This painting was done playing around with the concept of seeds as I was trying out several ideas. There's something I really like about it and I think it's the result of doing a whole series of them.

Reading the blog of artist Susan Klabak (check out her great site here) who posted the following article by Robert Genn from his Twice weekly Newsletter I was reminded again why Leslie Saeta's challenge this month is so great!

 Sign Up for the Painter's Key to get insightful twice weekly newsletters like this one!

Link to this post

Two artists
November 2, 2012

Dear Artist,

Because this is a bit personal, I'm not using their real names. They're both about 40 years old.

"Jack" got a BFA and then an MFA from a Midwestern University. He's visited many of the major contemporary art museums and follows the work of several "important" contemporary painters. He's written articles on Philip Guston and others. He subscribes to several art magazines and is "the most knowledgeable art-guy in any discussion." After university he worked for a while in a commercial art gallery. He sometimes writes me long, well-informed letters. He's painted eleven large paintings (two unfinished) since leaving school. He's not represented by any gallery. He thinks you need to move to New York and "get lucky" with a dealer who "really represents you."

"Jill" took two years of art school and then quit. She pays little attention to other artists. She subscribes to no art magazines but has taken several workshops. Her hobbies include bowling and travelling. At one time she also worked in a commercial art gallery. On two or three occasions she's written to me. She's painted "approximately two thousand paintings" since leaving school. She's represented by four commercial galleries in four, well-separated mid-sized cities.

There's a great story in David Bayles and Ted Orland's Art and Fear . Here it is:

"The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the "quantity" of the work they produced, all those on the right solely on its "quality." His procedure was simple: On the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work in the "quantity" group: fifty pounds of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B" and so on. Those being graded on "quality," however, needed to produce only one pot--albeit a perfect one--to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busy turning out piles of work--and learning from their mistakes--the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay."

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "Artists get better by sharpening their skills or by acquiring new ones; they get better by learning to work, and by learning from their work." (David Bayles and Ted Orland)

Esoterica: Both subscribers Jack and Jill are thoughtful and enthusiastic artists. Art is central to their lives. And while success and "being able to function as a full time artist" may not be important to some of us, their current situations are quite different. Jack rents an apartment and makes $2150 per month (plus tips and benefits) as an airport porter. Jill works daily in her converted garage in a home she now owns. These days she's averaging $18,000 per month. She has "no benefits."

Inspired to explore

"Still - Moving"

Oil on gessoboard

6x6

This was painted interpreting what I saw in real life and playing around with the design.  I was inspired by a plein air sketch I did at Leo Carillo Beach and although it's realistic I moved things around to work better and I like that I'm starting to take more liberties that way.   It's in an exhibit called Yin Yang Summer at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts in Thousand Oaks which I was invited to participate in right before vacation so it gave me a good (tight) deadline to ponder the theme and get to work on it:-)  I have 5 pieces in the show and 3 of them are painted in a more representational style - something I'm more familiar with.  The other 2 gave me the opportunity to explore abstracting my subject matter and interpreting it in a more personal way which really appeals to me...and I'm uploading those below.

Visiting galleries in Provincetown last month with my mom and sister was really inspiring and the two artists whose work I loved the most because of their beautiful abstracts were:

Kristen Gossler whose work can be found at the Hutson Gallery and:

http://www.jennynelson.com/2010.html#setsail

Jenny Nelson who shows her work at Julie Heller Gallery in P-town.  I loved Jenny's work because of her colors, strong simplified design and variety of marks and looking at her work helped me approach my abstract work in a more structured way.  I've realized I'm not an artist who can throw some paint on and just get lost in the process... I'm too much of a control freak I think (no - I know:) and that process is too unsettling for me because I don't know where I'm going... :-) so...

-First I started with the theme, deciding how I wanted to interpret the yin and yang of summer in a way that was meaningful to me and what symbols to include.
-I did a lot of sketching trying to simplify my subject matter and abstract it.
-I then painted an original sketch that still seemed too realistic to me.

Farewell - Hello First attempt

-I then painted on top of that.  Inspired by Jenny Nelson's work and the way she ties the design together with big shapes of colors, many times in light color-combinations, always beautiful, I worked on doing something similar, and was able to simplify my design more and tie it together better, I hope.  Here's my final version of the piece:

 "Farewell - Hello"

Oil on Gessoed Artboard

12x12 

And for my next piece I got even more abstract, focusing on big shapes unifying my more representational elements and had more fun in the process:

 

"Pleasure and Pedal"

Oil on Gessoed Artboard

12x12 

Printmaking class

I really love the work of David Weidman
http://weidmansart.com/prints.htm
so I was excited to take a printmaking class at Moorpark College this spring. Wanting to see if I could create some work inspired by Weidman's great shapes and design it took me quite a long time to figure out how to use the medium to it's advantage, so the fact that our teacher Sexton Stewart was very patient and gave us the creative freedom to take it where we wanted was so helpful. I figured out a few things along the way and the prints below were part of my final project. I like working monochromatically at times but found that with printmaking it almost works better the more contrasting colors you use. And I definitely want to play around making more abstract prints.