More Abstract Nonsense

I started my final painting for my painting class a couple of weeks ago. It was based off of a photo found at a mercantile of a few friends on bicycles who were roaming somewhere in England on a day off from the Navy during WWII. I desperately want this to be a good painting, because it's something I'd like to keep. Unfortunately, time has not been on my side, and the painting has been saved for another time to complete when I have more than a few days to put the work into it that I would like to so that it is what I hope it will be.

Instead, I started a completely new painting today... an abstract painting. Abstracts put the fear of God in me, I can tell you as they never seem to come out the way I want them to. Perhaps it's the pressure the instructors put on me, or perhaps they just aren't my forte, but they never seem to come together for me. So, when I started today, I was already a bit scared from the get go. I had a loose plan, but I told myself it was okay to revise as I went along. Forgive the horrid quality of the photos, as they were taken with a crappy camera phone, but I think the idea comes across that my mood shifted dramatically while working on this.

This was round two of working on the canvas. Basically, I had covered the canvas with an ultramarine blue color and then covered that with a blend of cadmium orange, pale yellow, magenta, and a bit of titanium white. I was actually pretty happy with this, and considered just doing some slight changes and turning it in. But, I changed my mind and went on to the next layer.

I wasn't sure what to make of it during this stage, and just kind of kept adding more layers onto the work, to see if something would happen. it also seemed very monotone in value, so I decided to add in some whites.

The layering process continued and I started to see this more as a darker painting than one that was so light as it was originally. So, I kept playing with it.

Was I just making a giant mess? That is how it was seeming to go. Colors were getting muddy, how should I get through this? Should I just start over? Who knows... but I kept going.

I could really see this turning dark, and wasn't sure if I wanted to leave it as such, or if I liked it better in the original state with the more orange colors.

The above photo was my stopping point this afternoon. I decided that I need to give myself a bit of a break to decide where I'm going with this because I've now taken something that started off so light and fairly delicate into a very dark place. Strangely, I like both the light and dark versions, but I feel that compositionally there is much to be desired, so I need to give myself a bit of room and time (though not much as tomorrow is my last day to work on this) to decide what needs to be done. I think the process has been quite therapeutic, regardless of the ultimate outcome.

Abstraction: Not for Me?

I'm feeling like such a failure today. I have had several weeks to work on an abstract painting for my watermedia class, and I have ultimately come up with nothing. Well, I have something, but it looks like something a small child sat down and completed in about five minutes. Despite the fact that I spent several hours working on it, and attempting to come up with something that made sense, at least compositionally, I just want to hang my head in shame, go in a corner and rock, and never touch a paint brush again. I don't know why abstraction is so difficult for me. It goes beyond difficult into a point where I just swirl into an extremely downward spiral, and have no desire to do anything anymore, even the projects that I was enjoying.

Jackson Pollock abstraction
*Photo from arthistoryspot.com

When I think back over the course of my nearly two and half years at this college, every abstract assignment has produced the same exact emotion. In the early days of drawing and painting, I was so concerned that I wouldn't be able to make something look even semi-realistic, that I never even stopped to think that I couldn't do abstract. I always assumed it would be something natural to me; an innate gift, if you will. After all, I always thought, 'how hard can abstraction be?' Instead, I get so angry with myself for being unable to paint/draw anything that is even remotely acceptable, and I find myself just wanting to drop out of the class and not deal with the failure (I won't drop the class, but I start having these thoughts). I don't understand why I can appreciate it, see others' work and admire it, study it endlessly, and still be unable to put out anything that looks like I spent time on it.

Hans Burkhardt: Burial of Gorky
*Photo from artknowledgenews.com

I've been told that some artist's go through shifts in their lives, and that they may do abstraction for long stretches and then suddenly turn to realism for a spell, and then trying something else entirely. Maybe this is just not the time in my life for abstraction. It's unfortunate, as it seems there is at least one (if not more) in each class to contend with, and I wish I could at least make peace with the genre, so that it wouldn't be such a struggle to get through these assignments. Unfortunately for me, I'm dealing with two abstract projects at the moment, and I'm hoping I am able to keep all of my hair through this process.

Struggles with Abstraction

My current painting project in progress is an abstract piece. Normally, I would be entirely thrilled about the prospect of being able to paint something abstract, as realism seems to be the focus of most of my painting classes. The assignment is to paint something that is an abstraction from nature, which does not use any of the local/natural colors of said nature, and (this is the kicker for me) that has a recognizable/identifiable concept.

Helen Frankenthaler abstract piece, Nature Abhors a Vacuum
Source: nga.gov

Abstract art is defined loosely as 'art that does not depict recognizable scenes or objects, but instead is made up of forms and colors that exist for their own expressive sake' (from the Dictionary of 20th Century Art). While there are different ways that artist's express abstract art, to me, the beauty of abstraction is that it doesn't have to be about anything. Of course, for some artist's it is 'about' something.

Vance Kirkland's Forces of Nature
Source: csfineartscenter.org

If you've ever been to the Kirkland Museum in Denver, it is quickly recognizable that Mr. Kirkland was a huge admirer of nature and space themes, and even though his work is very abstract, and his ideas were purely hypothetical of what could happen, there is a definite idea behind his work.


For my project, I have a definite concept/idea. I am a lover of all things related to elephants, and have strong feelings regarding poaching the animals simply for their tusks. Even though killing elephants has long been banned, they are still being killed in large numbers simply to remove what is essentially two large teeth, which are then made into jewelry and other items. One of the interesting and rather sad things about the poaching is that elephants with large tusks are the ones who are killed to get the most for the deed. This has created a genetic shift in the animal, because the elephants with small or no tusks are left alive, thus creating a genetic mutation of sorts with elephants being born with no tusks at all. 

Tuskless elephants are increasing in numbers due to poaching
Source: abc.net.au

 The idea is clear for the project, but causing said idea to come through in the painting is another story. I've done about a dozen color sketches, trying to reach some kind of sense or conclusion, but nothing comes from it. This seems silly to me as an abstraction may not show a clear idea at all. I'm struggling with how abstract to make the piece and how much I really want to worry about it. In the end, I think I need to do what I think is visually best, but I'm struggling with pleasing the instructor (e.g. following instructions) and doing what seems natural to me. I suppose that the truth remains: no one ever says art is easy.