New Painting
Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20 inches. There are lady friends of mine who see a naked lady and even a pregnant naked lady in the pencil drawing which this painting is based from.
Subconsciously I might have been working out some of my frustrations on paper, however that is not what I was actively thinking about when doing either the drawing or the painting. What I was thinking about was my ongoing conversation with Rhoda about rhythm and dance in art. Rhoda grew up taking dance lessons her entire youth and so she sees rhythm in everything. When I am doing these abstract drawings and paintings what I think about is the relation of each line and curve to the paper/canvas and how the lines and curves relate to each other. Further I am thinking about the color and darkness of the pencil and paint and how they relate to my icon teacher Peter’s philosophy of harmonic balance in a painting. Peter taught me that if the colors in an icon are not balanced the unbalanced color will draw the eye of the viewer away from the icon and toward the artists lack of skill. Thus when I am doing these drawings and paintings I strive to keep the colors balanced and never let one color have too much weight in the composition. One final pattern that I see myself doing quite a bit in these pieces is that I tend to put objects in the piece in 3’s. The drawing has one object in it, but the painting has 3 separate objects. Finally, the one other thing that I think about while both drawing and painting abstract pieces is the fact that abstracts are not constructed and defined like icons are. Icons are constructed. The iconographer knows exactly what needs to be painted to have the icon done properly. Abstract art is the exact opposite of the icon. Abstract art is not at all constructed and thus the composition, color, balance, rythm, etc of the piece is all based on the artist creating the piece. I am sure that soon this will no longer even be a consideration for me as I create these pieces, but for now it is a major one. Knowing when to say when the piece is done.
