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What I love about abstract art is that it is a mental workout for your brain. Since the painting is an abstraction, your brain has to work hard to figure out what it is seeing. Each time you look at the painting you find new images hidden within it. That's what keeps it interesting and fresh. Everyone sees different things. Take a look at my painting called Arabian Night and see how many animal shapes you can find.

Many of the names for my paintings are the result of images I see in them or feelings that they evoke.  One of my followers actually named my painting called Phoenix Rising. When she looked at it, her eye saw a Phoenix, hence the name. I was thinking of naming it Rising Sun, but the name she suggested was perfect. It captured the essence of the painting. The Phoenix is symbolic of renewal and hope for a better and brighter future. 

As you look through my work , I would love to hear from you about what you "see" when you look at a particular painting.

Happy Viewing!

Valerie

PHOENIX RISING

ARABIAN NIGHT

Last fall I had the wonderful opportunity to give a presentation on abstract art to about 20 artists from the Webster Art Club in Webster, New York. The vast majority of these artists did representational work and were not very familiar with abstract painting techniques. I, on the other hand, have never painted anything representational because I do not have any drawing ability. In fact, because I can't draw,  I never even thought about trying to paint until I discovered abstract art. What surprised me was that these talented artists said it was as difficult for them to do an abstract painting as it would be for me to do a realistic painting! They were used to a process that involved a lot of planning and sketching upfront and knowing exactly what the painting would be when it was finished. 

That is exactly the opposite of my process as an abstract artist. I usually have no  idea of what I want to do and the painting evolves as I go along to an undetermined place. Their question to me was so how do you get started?

A lot of books will tell you to just "play" and scribble and it will free your mind to be creative. For me, I love color so I usually start by selecting several colors I feel like using that day. I begin by just putting the paint on the canvas in interesting shapes and then letting my creativity take over. I don't have any preconceived idea so there isn't any right or wrong way to do it. I might put some music on to inspire me. Other times I will randomly apply some texturing medium to the canvas with different tools and that will direct the structure of my painting. I might also look through some of my art books to get inspiration from a technique that is described that I want to experiment with. Trial and error is how I learn and grow as an artist. You can't know what you are going to create until you do it. Creativity is about doing what you like and painting what you feel from within. If you like how the painting is evolving then keep going with it. If you don't, its easy to change it by painting over it.