Abstract Color, Musings and Paintings

Quoting Nicholas Wilton this week..... "If we are thinking about other people’s work when we are making art, then we are not really making our own art. The activity of comparing, admiring, and imitating other people’s work is a very different activity than making your art. These two activities should be kept far apart as they don’t help each other. Making strong art is accomplished more easily by looking within ourselves." His thoughts this week really rang true with me. So often I have been inspired by a particular artist whose work I admire and found myself painting thinking about how that person filtered the light thru the trees, or how a particular symbol gave rich meaning to his/her work. Now that doesn't mean that I should never use that symbol or something like it in my own painting, but what it does say to me is that, the use of a symbol in my painting should come from within me. Filtering the light thru my painting should happen because the painting itself ca

Welcome back to my Blog! Be sure to sign up for the notifications when there is a new posting so you won't miss any of my "abstract thoughts"! Today, let's think about your beliefs which can encourage or limit you in the creative journey. Why do some fail in their artistic journey and some do not? 1. One thing I hear a lot is "I'm not talented". That is a downer from the get go! If you think you have no talent or you compare yourself to others who you feel have more talent than you, it will limit your ability to truly find yourself as an artist. I tell students that "talent" is highly overrated. It's more important to have perseverence...some of my friends will remember Dinah Shore, who sang so poorly in high school that all her friends would beg her to stop! She kept saying someday she would be a star...and she believed it...and she persevered....right onto her own TV show where she sang with many popular performers of the day. Don'

That's a rather long name for a painting, but I think it really fits the work in progress that I'm sharing with all of you today. I began the painting with a variety of watercolors painted onto a 36x36 canvas. If you watched my previous YouTube demo you'll recognize the plastic over wet paint beginning that I used before. But I'll post a few pics for you anyway.... After this has dried completely, I remove the plastic and turn the canvas several times until I find a pattern that is pleasing to the eye. The pic below shows the underpainting on my easel. Since everything is transparent at this point, I begin by adding acrylic paints to create some opaque shapes. I often follow the patterns from the underpainting but not completely. After turning the canvas again, I've painted more shapes with acrylic inks and thinned acrylic paint. Have also used a yellow ink to glaze some of the areas. The crop below shows the blue painted areas on the left and the

It's now 2017 and if you read my last post of 2016, you know that "change" is my word for this year. Hopefully it will be a year of new ideas for creating and following my muse wherever it leads. One of the things I want to strive for this year is creating some short videos. I'm often ask "how do you begin your abstract paintings?" and the first video focuses on that question and demonstrates "one" of the many ways that I've found to jump start creativity. You will find it on YouTube at    https://www.youtube.com/analytics?o=U#;fi=v-cAzQxYfCg-0 Here's an image of the finished painting after the surface has dried and I've added acrylic paint over the underpainting creating "Bonefish". 24 x 24 on gallery canvas. I apologize for the poor lighting on the image...will do better next time! Abstract Color will focus on the making of art this year. Hope you will enjoy! carly