Large abstract painting – so close to done!

I am so pleased to say that I am hovering on the very edge of my large abstract painting being complete. During class last week, we didn’t have any painting time, which gave me extra time to reflect on where I need to take the painting next.

I decided that the painting needed a big, disruptive move. The challenge was to disrupt the painting in a pleasing way. I decided that I wanted to incorporate some hard-edge line in to the piece. To do so, I fired up good old trusty Photoshop and got my pen tablet out.

Here’s a reminder of the work progression to date:

abstractprogress - fromthedead

I photographed my current work, and added a new Photoshop layer on top of it to experiment with disruptions in an erasable manner. This is really liberating when painting traditionally, and was so much fun. I tried a few things – lines mirroring the current composition, mirroring my original composition, lines traced around the current brushwork and changed in position and scale, and lastly a series of hard edged lines matched in tone and colour with the point of the painting that they originated from. The latter is the technique I ended up translating on to the physical canvas:

abstract_final - 1

I am super pleased with this move – I feel it creates a lighthearted and fun rhythm across the canvas, whilst being a crisp ode to the colours I chose to work with from the outset.

I’m contemplating another hard edged line or two to finish it off, but for the time being have just hung it on the wall to reflect on it further. One thing I have learned is just how much time one spends sitting and looking at their work, which is just as important as the act of painting.

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