This is the fourth black and white in a series of six that I’m painting with acrylic on large watercolor paper.  For this one I used a large brush to make the thick horizontal swaths with mars black acrylic.  Then I switched to a smaller brush for the thinner vertical and angled lines criss-crossing the wide ones. 

I let the edges of the lines fade into the white paper with a dry-brush effect.  Then I drew sketchy lines and brushed over them.  I also let the paint freely drip and splatter to give it a rough, spontaneous effect. 

  Slice #12, 46″ x 34″ acrylic on paper.

This is the second piece in my series of black and white non-objective paintings on paper.  They are all inspired by Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, but have my sensibility and touch.  I am using the very white paper for the white, and mars black acrylic for the black. No white paint is involved here.

I began with a wide brush, sweeping it across the paper to make large curving shapes.  I then added echoes of thinner marks with a smaller brush, allowing the paper to show through as the brush became dry. 

I tried to be loose with this, letting the marks sweep in a natural gesture, and allowing lots of spashing paint to fall across the paper.

  B&W #10, 46″ x 34″ acrylic on paper.

This is the second piece in my series of black and white non-objective paintings on paper.  They are all inspired by Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, but have my sensibility and touch.  I am using the very white paper for the white, and mars black acrylic for the black. No white paint is involved here.

I began with a wide brush, sweeping it across the paper to make large curving shapes.  I then added echoes of thinner marks with a smaller brush, allowing the paper to show through as the brush became dry. 

I tried to be loose with this, letting the marks sweep in a natural gesture, and allowing lots of spashing paint to fall across the paper.

  B&W #10, 46″ x 34″ acrylic on paper.

I started a group of large abstract paintings on paper, using black acrylic paint to create a black and white image.  These are spontaneous, expressionist compositions where there is no room for corrections.  The paper background is the “white” in the black and white, so once I’ve made a mark, it stays.

I began with a wide brush for the central image and then switched to smaller brushes, working with quick strokes that left some dry-brush shadings as well as the dense black.  I let the paint flow freely, leaving natural drips and spattering.  In the final step I drew black lines, again quick and spontaneous, to give more texture and emphasis.

  B&W #9, 46″ x 34″ acrylic on paper.

One of my writing/artist friends was inspired by one of my abstract paintings and the poems of Emily Dickenson to write this piece.  The painting is shown below it.

“A little madness in the spring”- a burst of vibrant red oozing from its center.  It’s center containing a secret, a lurking non committal figure, purely abstract striking each of us differently.   Mixing not one, not two, but a triad of emotion.  Red over powering red, upon red, around red.  Begin with red–use red to express the devilish work of Our Secret.   In the center is a pumper, a structurally sound heart of sorts that enables us to not only see the abstract but attach to it meaning– almost giving it a face.  Putting a pulse in the painting.  Reviving us once the pulse reaches us.  We stand observing the abstract with the resemblance of blood on our clothing–on our face.  We are an extension of this painting just by being present in this place, on this day when the heart of this piece reaches out to us…drawing us in to get a closer look…to allow us to swing in its depths and be alive with its power.   We question the heart within us…are we friends with delight or pain?  The devilish nature of its extended tentacles grab us and pull us in and we pump….alongside the abstract and we reach the next observers as they come close to view the center.   We reach them with red.  We pump our vengeance onto them …the quiet observers who thought they were just window shopping this evening.  And now drawn in like they’ve walked into a spiders web.  The red covers them and they are guided in by us as we say “I shall not wait”…we are thrown from their pumping to the floor, a bloody carcass of which we went in,  now they have taken over.  We scramble to our feet, running amok throughout this gallery having been transformed by the piece entitled Our Secret, and we think we know now how this painting got its name.  To observe is to be drawn in–used—then discarded. The painting is victorious, but the victory comes late. “Last to be identified.” — by Kim Barhite (words in quotes by Emily Dickenson)

  Our Secret, 36″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas.

I started taking piano lessons recently, and I think my new musical awareness shows through in this recent abstract drawing.  See if you agree.

I began with calligraphy pens, creating the sweeping wave-like lines first in blues, greens and magenta.  Then I drew finer lines with a Koh-i-noor fine point pen in black and red.  The horizontal lines and small circles suggest the lines of musical notation.  The opposing shapes and colors suggest a dance.

What do you think?

  2012 Drawing #9, 11.5″ x 9″ ink on paper.

Each time I write in my blog about a new painting I’m working on, I am talking about the painting process as I do it.  Now there are books available that tell you how to paint abstract art from many artists’ perspectives.

Abstract artist Sue St. John has been producing these books for several years, and I am one of the artists in her fourth edition. The books are collections of paintings by a group of abstract artists, along with a detailed step-by-step description of how they painted them.  As Sue says, the point is not to copy what the artists did, but to learn from them in order to create your own. 

Sue’s first book on this topic, Journeys To Abstraction, is now available for pre-order in hard cover from Amazon.  But you can purchase all the books as e-books on Sue’s website.  One of my favorite artists, Cheryl McClure, is in Journeys To Abstraction.  This book also has advice on composition, color, symbolism, inspiration, and more.

Here’s the painting I describe in Sue’s fourth book:

  Parsing the Fullness, 30″ x 30″ acrylic on canvas.

While preparing more canvases for painting, I worked on an abstract drawing today using calligraphy pens, brush pens, and a fine point Koh-i-noor pen.  I started by making broad sweeps with the thick end of the calligraphy pens, using brown, orange and burgundy. 

I had been using spring colors in my recent paintings, but a couple days ago I woke up to find 6 inches of snow on the ground! I’ve seen snow here in Ithaca in early April, but this one was a big surprise.  It’s mostly melted now and beginning to warm up a bit.  Some upstate orchard crops have been damaged, especially cherries.

  2012 Drawing #8, 11.5″ x 9″ ink on paper.

To finish this third painting in a series of four, I first drew butterfly and floral shapes with alizarin crimson and then carefully filled them in with a watery wash so they would remain transparent.  I tried to overlap the same color in the background so that part of the image would be more intense.  The whole idea is to get a sense of overlapping and floating.

Next, I drew berry-like circles in light blue violet and then filled them in.  These are more opaque, although some are translucent.  Again, I overlapped the same color in the background, and also some of the other images already painted. 

  Slice #23, 10″ x 48″ acrylic on canvas.

After finishing the background on these two new abstract paintings, I began to draw shapes in cadmium yellow light, cadmium orange, cobalt, and sap green.  As I made each shape, I filled it in with a small brush using paint diluted with water and gloss medium.   I mixed a light gray-blue for the inside of the cobalt blue shapes, and these came out more opaque. 

  Slice #23, 10″ x 48″ acrylic on canvas.

  Slice #24, 10″ x 48″ acrylic on canvas.