In which I hear the teacher say: “don’t pull your pants up, look for a thousand ways to pull your pants down.”

Seems to me that well-developed non- representational art might require well-developed representational skills. 

I played with setting up some limits to tonight’s practice: using shapes cut from three used palette papers, using only two colors and no blue. I find unity restful and have found that a single color washed over all the colors is unifying as is an action like splattering or sponging. I splattered like crazy on this one. and then I used blue!

While happily experimenting with brushes, paint behavior, strokes, colors, I am ending up imposing a “picture” on top of the chaos. I’ve been staring at abstract paintings when available (one at the funeral arrangement office today) and looking at the choices made. The first painting (above) was done in class and I was experimenting with using torn paper towel with Susan Faludi’s face. The second painting is “practice between classes” at home.

This (above) was the first stop.

This was the second stop.

Last stop for today

And this is the last chance to paint this week ‘coz we’re going to see whales. Then it’s week two of class on Saturday. Today I kept breaking what I was making. All the paintings above are the same painting/piece of paper. Good practice.

Not enough time today – just about an hour. But I did buy my first 16 oz jar of titanium white. In class we heard that 85% of paint used is white. I’m not surprised – in my scant experience I have used up 3 tubes of white.

It’s close to 90 degrees, so moved easel outside in the shade. Set timer to 60 minutes and then kept on after the hour. Yesterday in class I was enjoying someone else’s turquoise, orange and mint green (painting on right), so I tried those colors at home.

As a commitment to learning and risking, I sat down with brushes and a bottle of ink to play around. I started to see how the ink could be like the tonal qualities of charcoal or pencil.