| Do you want to create abstract art, but feel | | | | enhance my emotions when I paint. Sometimes |
| that you don't know where to begin? Here are | | | | I choose music to reflect my current mood: |
| some ideas to get you started:Begin | | | | new age, jazz or classical for reflective |
| traditionally by copying from life and | | | | moods, rock for strong, driving emotions, and |
| gradually move into abstraction. When I was | | | | so forth. Sometimes a particular mood |
| young, I drew and painted portraits, still | | | | develops as I listen to and empathize with |
| lifes, and landscapes. Sometimes I copied | | | | the lyrics of a song.Music's rhythm and tempo |
| from a photograph or a reproduction of | | | | can also have an influence on the quality and |
| someone else's art. The goal at that time | | | | speed with which you apply a paintbrush or |
| was to represent what I saw as closely as | | | | palette knife to the canvas. How you apply |
| possible. It wasn't until my late teens that | | | | the paint will be reflected in the result, |
| I began to "abstract" or move away from | | | | leaving a trace of the musical rhythm you |
| reality. I still began with a subject, but I | | | | were listening to as you made it.Try this |
| did not feel bound to represent it, only to | | | | experiment: think of yourself as an |
| use it as a starting-off point for my own | | | | instrument or tool of the music in your head. |
| purposes.All art is abstract in the sense | | | | Relax and let the music select colors, |
| that it is not the object itself. Many who | | | | control the movement of your hands, and |
| call themselves "abstract artists" are indeed | | | | create the content.Aside from music, emotion |
| painting a subject, but freely stylizing that | | | | itself can drive the painting process. |
| subject. If you want to paint "abstract" but | | | | Non-representational art is the best way to |
| have trouble figuring out how to approach the | | | | directly express emotion because it isn't |
| canvas, try taking a subject you have painted | | | | constrained by attempting to be "true" to a |
| before and abstracting it.If you are painting | | | | particular subject matter. If you wake up |
| from life, for example, try squinting your | | | | mad at the world, you can paint a jagged |
| eyes until all you can see are the blurry | | | | swath of red across the canvas, directly |
| outlines of your subject. Forget the | | | | expressing your anger. Color, line, |
| details. Take your brush or pencil and | | | | form--everything in your painter's arsenal is |
| sketch in the broad shapes and contours. Or | | | | available to say exactly how you are |
| take a very small section of your subject and | | | | feeling.One day when I was in a particularly |
| blow it up to cover the whole canvas.Now | | | | dark mood, I kept feeling "bloody secret" as |
| stand back and see how your composition | | | | I painted. Yet I wanted this feeling to be |
| unfolds, how the shapes take form and become | | | | both exposed and hidden at the same time. |
| interesting in and of themselves, without | | | | The result was a painting I titled, "Tied in |
| reference to your subject. Keep playing with | | | | a Bow." I painted the bloody secret in thick |
| your composition, adding and subtracting | | | | red paint in the center of the canvas, but I |
| shapes, modifying color, strengthening lines. | | | | tied it in a bow and framed it prettily in |
| Follow what draws you in, scrap what | | | | pink. Thus, the blood was there, but it was |
| doesn't. Work fast, and then stop and study | | | | my secret.If you are feeling a strong emotion |
| what you have.Another way to begin to paint | | | | of any kind, try expressing it directly |
| abstract art is to use your emotions to get | | | | through color, line and form on the canvas. |
| you started. Listening to music is one way I | | | | |