More Abstracts

Blocks.  Watercolor.
Approximately 11x18 inches.

Last post, I wrote about scaling up abstracts. This morning, I was trying to scale up to a larger landscape, and it evolved into an abstract.  Huh.  I got to a certain point, and sort of attacked it in frustration, and then when I came back around tried to make a go of it.  The shapes that stretch down?  They all originated from my attack.

I started with hansa yellow medium, ultramarine blue, napthamide maroon, and cadmium orange hue from daniel smith.  On the second go around, I thought areas of the painting needed to be more connected by shape, and I couldn't go lighter in the top quarter unless I started to pull in crayon.  I tried going back with indigo to block out larger shapes, and think that works reasonably well.  (I think it would work better with different colors.  Sometimes I put a palette together, and then wonder what I was thinking.)

There are a couple of take away lessons for me.....one's not to give up on a painting too early....I see this when kids draw and paint, where they make two marks and think they've made a mistake.  They want a new piece of paper immediately rather than soldiering on.  The second is to balance shapes with color.

Scaling Abstracts

Wind II.  Watercolor.  13x13 inches.

When I paint abstracts, I usually work fairly small--around 5x5 inches.  And, for some reason, the shape is typically square.

It's hard to scale up to larger paintings, and I'm not sure why.  I made an attempt here, with an idea for a painting on a small scale.  (Wind I Study, below) and then trying the painting again using the same colors and much larger (Wind II, left).  I started with a horizontal abstract with the dark blue and light blue with the gold gray above, and it was so boring, I ended up going back in te next day and adding the swoop into the "sky" space.

Limited Palette Abstratcs: Lemon Yellow, Phthalo Blue RS, and Quinacridone Rose

Red Dot.  Watercolor.  4.5 inches square.

Last week, I painted anenomes with a new(ish) palette. You can see that here. The paint colors I used, included permanent lemon yellow from mameri blu; and, from Daniel Smith, phthalo blue red scale, and quinacridone rose. Embarassing confession--I didn't have the names of the paints quite right last week. Oy.