Anna Berends van Loenen

Rules of Abstract Art

I like it, because of the change of background, your artwork gets more depth than your first attempt (which I did like too by the way). I keep on looking for images in the shapes and that’s fun. You grab my attention longer than with your first attempt. You still keep everything balanced. First in 3 equal parts now you focus everything on the center piece image. This is perfectly fine, but I would love to see you take that daring step further and see what an unbalance would do. But that’s for a future project. First get comfortable with what you are doing now. I love seeing how you reflect on your own work and how you listen to suggestions and don’t take them literally but make them your own. That’s a great basis of growth as an artist. But never loose your curiosity and fun!

I send you so much gratitude, Anna! Black has been my no-go color since I was 8, 1961, &amp; mom did not approve of children wearing black, “because it’s the color of death.” 1961 is also the year my brother (age 19) died. We all have baggage we carry. Rather freeing to start letting go. My mother was wonderful, but in 1961 there was very little awareness about children and grieving or how to deal with it.      I keep thinking there’s a house in this piece, and it is disturbing with chaos around it. I wanted to have a “focal point” in the re-do, but looking at the whole now, it is too much about my life. Even with the soft pinks which seem to blunt the passionate reds or try to soften the chaos, but it feels honest. As a former college English teacher, I am SO into deconstructing stuff, so the cut-up wasn’t hard. The original wasn’t precious, and what I view is a re-reading, what we might have called a “reading between the lines.” Also taught writing &amp; rhetoric, so I literally “read” almost everything. LOL!!! Thanks again for being teaching, for being there with feedback, and for listening to this explication! Blessings!  PS Even though the focal point isn’t placed off-center — good suggestion — it sorta is in the story I give it. 

Your story gives your artwork so much more power. It’s exactly how it’s meant to be. It’s you. It’s your story. I love it

It looks lovely. Such a nice color combo. Just embrace the happy accidents from the Posca marker. Not being to precise and letting intuition and play into your art will only make “the rules” of abstract arts look even better.And yes always keep on learning. I learn from art every day. It’s the best benefit art has to offer besides fun 😉

THANKS SO VERY MUCH! l didn’t like the way the segment to the right has such a harsh, line going down by the middle part. I like the values OK. I used your set-up as a model. I tried to vary some hints of shapes shapes in other panels. The whole thing was challenging, but here I am ready to try another one and maybe using acrylics (anathema to my watercolor self!)! Any tip on how I could fix that divisive line? Also would love to fix those ugly circles here and there that have a a dark center - tried to fix with a Posca, but what do you think of painting over them with white acrylic?

With watercolor you can always go darker, so why not extend de dark color onto that light triangle? Then the straight divider line gets interrupted. It’s an easy and save way to go. It keeps the essence of the work you’ve already made. If it doesn’t solve the problem you can always do more or use your posca or acrylics.  Don’t fuss over details and look at the whole of the project. When you fuss over details, there is the danger of overworking the project and that would be such a waste of your time, creativity and an overall lovely project. Or see this as a learning project. Now you know what works and what doesn’t work. You can start over without doing exactly the same and see what happens. It’s silly to say, but you get better by doing. Hopefully these tips will help you. Just do what feels good for you.

I am still looking this over and still want to improve it. I like the colors but the composition doesn’t work for me. I'm thinking about going mixed media and wondering if adding some black or gray or even white acrylic in a few areas would be too stark. I see both black dots which could go blacker. some of my dark red is almost black. I’m thinking maybe I should go with it and work it in. Too harsh?  (Using black scares me!) Maybe the experiment would be good for learning. Thanks for your feedback and suggestion which got me re-thinking this. I really liked the rule of three and the class. Would some disruption of the linearity actually create more cohesion as an abstract? Best to you with gratitude, Judy, trying to be brave and bold

You are bold and brave. You're showing up and doing the work. That's more than a lot of other people do. Cherise that! An experiment is always good for learning. Besides, it's scary, but it's also just paint. If it doesn't work and you're quick, you can wipe it off with a cloth. If you let it dry, you can always paint over it if you use acrylics or Posca, for example, and nobody would know it was there in the first place.  You tried different sizes, which is really good, but the 3 columns are equal in size. If you would divide them differently next time. for example, 1 section 2/3 and 1 section 1/3, or 3 sections in all different widths. Or try to see each column as 3 different pieces of art (you can cut the artwork, but that would be really scary), and you will notice that they really work well as separate pieces of art. Maybe then the need to add black (or really dark red) would be less of an issue.  I still like the vibe your art is giving, so please be gentle with yourself. don't overwork it.

Oooh! Never thought of cutting it up! If I can think of using black on it, cutting it apart doesn’t seem so radical. (I sew, and that is as cut-up art! LOL!) As a retired college English teacher, composition is dear to my heart, and rearrangement is a key part of the writing process. Anyway, I feel blessed to read your suggestions and will get back to you Your reminder that it’s only paint is a good one! Gratefully, Judy

Anna,
Did you mention cutting apart the original and how scary that might be? Well, it wasn’t all that scary, but doing it all over again took a long time, and I sat with it in various stages until I got here. Thanks much for your counsel on what I could have done differently!
<img srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/b34ce6df31f0c2675513e21feabbe9c5/67fcc8a4.jpeg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/b34ce6df31f0c2675513e21feabbe9c5/67fcc8a4.jpeg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" src="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/b34ce6df31f0c2675513e21feabbe9c5/67fcc8a4.jpeg" loading="lazy" alt="Completely Deconstructed then Reconstructed Art - image 1 - student project">
Pleased with this complete re-do. At least it felt brave though don’t know if it’s an improvement.
Thoughts and feedback welcome as ever from viewers.
Judy
PS Here’s the first attempt.
<img srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/b34ce6df31f0c2675513e21feabbe9c5/6ccf311c.jpeg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/b34ce6df31f0c2675513e21feabbe9c5/6ccf311c.jpeg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" src="https://static.skillshare.com/uploads/project/b34ce6df31f0c2675513e21feabbe9c5/6ccf311c.jpeg" loading="lazy" alt="Completely Deconstructed then Reconstructed Art - image 2 - student project">

Completely Deconstructed then Reconstructed Art

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