Abstract Practice

The last few weeks I have been using an app, “sketch a day” to try and bring some new variety into my art. I have a tendency to kind of get stuck in a pattern of drawing the same thing, or types of things over and over. This app simply provides you with a single word prompt every day to focus on. do it is been a really good thing to be forced a little bit outside of my comfort zone.

Yesterday the prompt was “paradise”. As I began working to conceptualize what I wanted to create from that, I struggled to come up with anything physical I could represent that felt like paradise to me. So, as I often do, I chose to be slightly oppositional, and draw of this abstract and peace, and it does feel like paradise to me.

I have been asked before how I come up with a design for an abstract piece. And in my attempts to answer this question, I realized I have never come up with an abstract design. All that I have done is simply try to allow my brain to release control over the production, and then just start making marks that feel in accordance with the concept I am trying to convey. That is to say I start off the piece with no idea of how the art will actually physically manifest. I start only with the concept, void of any form. As I move about creating the peace, the biggest challenge is making sure my ego does not attempt to insert itself into that concept as well. My ego, as everyone’s does, has many opinions and judgments on what something “should“ be. But in that judgment, all that is created is limitations and boundaries for where the art could possibly go. My best abstract and pieces are the ones that I am able to remain focused on the feeling of the concept, void of any judgment of it. It is a process for sure, but the more it is practiced the easier it ultimately becomes to operate from a place void of judgment.

I encourage anyone interested in abstract, art to give this a try and see if it can open up your art into new possibilities you have not conceived of before. And if you do try it, please let me know how it works for you.