Saturday 19 June 2010

Emotions

Emotions




In response to some of the comments made yesterday about my latest abstract. Yes I also turn them in many directions not only once they are complete but during the process. I always know if I have completed the abstract I was feeling at the time if at the end of the process I am in no doubt at all about the way it should be viewed. Hopefully it is the way it was painted.

There has been for me the odd occasion when I have been working on an abstract and stopped to let it dry or to have coffee break. On returning to it I have found myself working on it without being aware I left it, “the wrong way round.”

I always have a feeling of amazement about painting abstracts. I had so many wrong thoughts about them when I started to paint. I wrongly thought, they were easy, and that they took less skill than a landscape or seascape. I now know they are equally as difficult and that they are none of them easy.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about painting abstracts. I was asking this artist friend how she felt at the end of a painting, because I always feel drained, and more so after an abstract.

All that said, I still hear the words of my wife, “Abstracts do not sell as well as your others. Stick to what you are good at.”

She makes a valid point.

Also, I would be able to paint without hearing people ask me, “What were you on when you painted that?”

So here is one of my very early attempts at an abstract. I think with just a glance at it you will see what it is lacking, emotion. I called it emotion, but I now know it lacked it.

I show it today, after showing one that had emotion, to share with you the fact that many abstracts just do not work.

Like the story of my other blog learn and move on I guess.

This blog is linked to my other. Saying Farewell

8 comments:

  1. I could have written this post.. I was echoing similar thoughts just yesterday.. doing an abstract is definitely helping me to oil my rusted brain contrary to what I has thought earlier. I loved "Emotions"..For me, these emotions you created here feel like deep and heart felt.

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  2. Your abstracts always leave me in awe. Such vibrancy, life and emotion in each one. I know they are not easy, I could not for the life of me create abstracts like you do.

    Each canvas stirs the viewer to look more and see more; do you realize what you accomplish ... so many of us would love to attract the viewer and hold them as you do.

    Please don't say 'farewell' to abstracts. The art world would be empty without your creations.

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  3. Honestly, Ralph, I am so NOT a fan of abstract art. I never get from it what the artist intends. They always seem chaotic to me and like the work of a small child. I just can't step out of the linear and orderly that goes on in my head to appreciate them. That said, I do rather enjoy them when the colors come together so beautifully. I always feel that I lack something intrinsic to artists because of this...

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  4. It's true... from my experience, I have found abstract painting far more draining than other painting. I think it is because the expression comes from deep within and not the usual visually inspired way.

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  5. I agree that abstracts are difficult. I tried to do a Zentangle the other day, thinking it would be an easy little exercise, and I couldn't do it. I couldn't make my brain create something that I couldn't see yet. I wonder if you have to have a certain type of personality to be able to paint in the abstract.

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  6. Your abstract today and yesterday are both lovely! Abstract painting takes skill and dedication as much as any other. I really appreciate that you paint both realistically and abstractly.

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  7. I can see/feel emotions in your abstract.
    Off to see your other blog.

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  8. what a beautiful abstract emotion-landscape Ralph...

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