>Fun with color!

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I’ve had this certain, lovely silk scarf for a number of years now.  It’s one of my favorites and I can’t recall where I got it. What I love about it are the colors – blues, greens, and touches of purple.  It became a source of inspiration for this, my first real abstract painting.

I’d painted one abstract before, a real “strokey” kind of thing with splashes of color laid down by the brush.  Here, though, I wanted to work with blocks of color.  And draw from the inspiration of that lovely scarf.

I worked on this in class and Hazel, in her roundabout way, shared her thoughts on abstracts.  Her teacher, a well-regarded artist and creative director for a number of leading fashion publications, took her to a show one time.  Must’ve been 40-50 years ago.  She told him someone else she listened to in the art world claimed abstract art would be a flash in the pan and die out soon.  Her mentor (Pops, she calls him), took her to this show of a brilliant abstract artist (sorry, didn’t catch the name) and in Hazel’s words “tears came into my eyes!”

She said it was the colors that moved her so, but she learned the importance of allowing a color to flow behind another color, to weave in and out as if intertwined.  And as I worked, she reminded me to allow the paint to mix on the canvas, not on the pallet.  I’m so thankful for her little “minuette” lessons.  Before I painted this, I never gave much credence to abstract painting, perceiving it as just paint slapped onto a canvas.  But as I worked, I gave so much thought to each “layer” I added it took more time than many traditional paintings I’ve done.  I call it “The Produce Aisle” since the bright fuschia/magenta color in the lower right side resembles, to my mind, a watermelon with its repetitive strokes of black erupting from the reds as seeds.

I love this work and enjoy looking at it since there is so much to explore.  I hope you like it too!