Ferguson Meets Bernice

At some point (hopefully in the near future) I'll get through this abstract period and get back to the real world of representational art. But, for now I'm having loads of fun messing around with the abstact stuff. One of my friends came by yesterday to meet me for lunch. He works exclusively in abstracts. He said he was deeply troubled by this piece which was still on the easel. He said it bothered him because it looked like I knew what I was doing and he knew damn well that I didn't have a clue. Hey, what are friends for?

I'm fascinated by the way the paintings seem to insist on what needs to be done. Cool it off here, warm it up there. In a representational piece I frequently get to a point where the painting is not good and I don't know what to do next to make it better. When I start thinking about what to do things go downhill at warp speed. Maybe the abstact message is to think less and paint more.

Ferguson's results were negative.

I decided to try another abstract. I've gotten around the ponderous names by naming the painting from a routine event in the life of a guy named Ferguson. On this one I chose to use an analogous color scheme reaching across green, through blue to violets. Since it's clear that this is an evening scene with tall buildings, does that mean that the painting is not abstract? I set up a fairly close in two point perspective and let her rip.

An Abstract Moment

I haven't done abstractions for fear I would have to make up crazy names and try to explain things that are inexplainable. I did this one yesterday as a sort of relaxation exercise. To my complete surprise it moved rather quickly from aimless doodling into a demanding subject. I selected a limited pallette based on a simple triad and stuck to those colors. I did this to keep myself from grabbing and slapping any old color in any old place. I put in a few horizontal and vertical lines at random and began building from there. As it started taking shape it started telling me what to do. I know, that sounds weird, but I really got caught up in the non-representational demands of making a painting. I discovered that there is some logic to an abstraction when you get right down to where the color meets the surface. And, by the way, that dark mark in the center at the top is not part of the painting. It's a shadow from the top clamp on my easel. Photography is yet another skill I haven't mastered. The piece is pastel on colourfix. It's 18x24. I haven't decided whether it is finished or not.