You may have noticed that I have been branching out into a new form of painting in the past year.
I decided to stretch myself and try abstract painting! It’s not actually very easy to do, even though it may look like a bunch of paint splatters.
With portrait or still life painting, you know what your subject is supposed to look like. With abstract, you can either map out a composition, or just paint intuitively. I’ve done both in my abstract journey. It is a freeing form of expression, and is still like solving a puzzle, which is how I look at all painting. Is the composition balanced? Is there any tension in it, which for abstract work seems to work best. It’s best to not have things too symmetrical. Color values, light to dark are used to create interest. Is there a looseness about it, or is it too tight?
I haven’t given up on painting children’s portraits, in fact I’m working on one now which is a surprise. But I hope that both forms of painting will cross-pollenate each other, creating a more interesting product.