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