-For a long time, I was one of "those people" who believed that abstract painting was a kind of fraud. But recently (like, in the last decade or so) I've had a change of heart and mind. In particular, Anne Truitt's published journals changed my thinking. So when the opportunity of Nuala's class came up, I thought I'd try it.
-Nuala started the class with "blind drawing." We got out our pads and pencils, she put on some music, and we drew for the duration of the music with our eyes closed. This was not as unsettling -- or as difficult -- as I expected it to be. Then we drew to the same music with our eyes open, and compared the two pieces. Most of the people in the class preferred the blind drawing. I liked my "seeing" one better -- not enough to brandish it, but better.
-Then we took a big piece of paper and cut it in quarters and did some small painted pieces. I painted this vertically:
But I like it better horizontal:
I think that this one (below), is more a background than a painting. I'll take a look at it again in couple of days and see if an idea for it has coalesced. There are some tentative orange slashes in the middle section that might grow into something.
Next, we used half sheets of paper and did "collaborative" paintings. Each of us started a painting, worked on it for a bit, then shifted around to the next person's painting, worked on that for a bit as though it were our own, then moved on again until we arrived back at our original stations and finished "our" paintings. Each person in the class had a distinct style of brush work and wildly different color preferences so this grew more challenging as each piece grew more complete. I'm not sure how I feel about the result, but I liked the exercise a lot.
Next we took another half-sheet and did a collaboration with one other person. Then -- da-da-dum -- we took a full sheet of 18 x 24 paper and did a painting all on our own. In the materials list, Nuala had said we should bring "one item not usually used to put on paint." By now, I've taken so many surface design, "print with anything" classes that I had a hard time coming up with something that would be provocative without being difficult to use -- or simply ridiculous. I decided on something I have a good and ready supply of: two sizes of cat food cans. Again, I think this is more background than painting, but it's closer to being a painting, I think.
Posts
