Hi friends! Today I want to take a break from Autistic Expressionism and talk about abstract art. So, what is abstract art? Well, Google says it’s “art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality but instead uses shapes, colors, forms and gestural marks to achieve its effect.” The Oxford Languages site agrees and so does the Tate Collective Galleries.
Abstract art can range from fun and colorful pieces with lots of geometric form and patterns from artists like Wassily Kandisky and Piet Mondrian, to paintings that look like cave art made in more modern times from Joan Miro, to contour line drawings that look like faces, to simplified landscapes that have been visually taken apart. I went through a phase where I deconstructed sunsets from a couple of different regions and I thoroughly enjoyed the process.
That statement is a pretty good segue to this current art piece I want to share today. I’ve signed up for another set of classes from a pretty successful artist, but this time I’m learning more about setting my mindset and intention along with some new techniques like using texture and my fingers, as well as adding metallic leafs into the works.
Every artist has their own process and reason for making art. For me, after learning about and processing my autism and all that it means for me, then dealing with some pretty scary and hard life events over the last year plus, I am finally coming into myself. Not the me that has tried so hard for years to fit in, but the me that God designed me to be. I’m owning my love of mystery; I’m reconnecting with my inner hippie girl; I’m facing my artistic challenges, and I’m going ALL IN to connect with the sacred and divine. Since I’ve had sacred moments with God, I’ve gotten greedy for more and am using all my senses when I paint to reconnect.
This painting was the first week’s lessons in my new course. Stage one began with praying for a word (mine was peace) and painting it onto the canvas in an intuitive color (yellow), and then painting around the word with other intuitive colors (mine were pink and royal blue). Then, for my first time ever, I added modeling paste for texture, which mixed with the paint and created a colorful raucous mess.
Later when this first layer had dried, the instructor advised another student to add whatever they wanted into their painting, and so I took that advice and dug out some full body paints in orange, magenta, and aqua that had been waiting for me for a long time. I smooshed these around my canvas with an old hotel key card, scraping and reapplying the paint and texture, leaving large blobs that looked a bit like fish to me. Then I forced a toothy tool around the canvas, making rake-like divets in the paint. I left it to dry thoroughly overnight.
The next day I created more ambiance in my studio by lighting a lime-scented candle and adding a few drops of sweet orange and cedar wood oils into my paint water. The citrus scents were strong and fragrant, sending me tropical vibes, so I tuned in my air pods to some cool Hawaiian music and while imagining beachy breezes, I got out my paints. It’s crazy how a painting can morph from an original vision to something completely different, but my secret is to let the energy just flow through me without judgment or correction.
I pulled out gold, purple, and navy blue and started lightly applying the paint around the orange and aqua blobs. I had every intention of keeping those blobs and turning them into fish, but the more I spread the paint, the less clamorous the painting became. This was definitely the art streaming through me, rather than me being the designer during the process because my original word had been “peace” and what I had created was anything but that. As I added the cooler darker colors, they soothed me as they soothed the painting.
The instruction for the last stage was to add gold leaf, but I rooted out some copper leaf I had from years ago and added that because I thought it would better suit the orange tones. As I was finishing up, the composition still felt a bit scattered, so I threw the last bit of gold paint up around the largest copper leaf patch and voila! C’est fini!
Both my husband and I loved this painting so I framed it and it currently hangs in my great room. I hope you’ve enjoyed this description for this painting I’m calling “Hawaiian Galaxy.”
Thanks for reading, and if you’d like to know when Dawn’s next blog and/or vlog are available, sign up for her email updates here: https://mailchi.mp/8e630fb4517c/dmpaulart
Dawn
Dawn Marie Paul 