Baby Steps into Abstraction (This Week’s Tweak!)

Once upon a time… I didn’t “get” abstract art. I understood color, and motion, and composition, sure - after all, I’d been painting since I was a tot. And in art class, I’d gone through exercises of gradually distorting an image until it looked like something (or nothing) else - and I recognized the high level of creativity involved in turning a photo of a toaster into a series of squares and swirls.

But other than the occasional “that looks cool”, my results were lackluster, and the whole thing felt intellectual and cold.

Then I read “Drawing on the Artist Within” (a follow up to the classic “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards). With one quick exercise from the book, I grokked abstraction on an *emotional* level.

Abstract, contemporary art didn’t have to be a purely cerebral experience, I realized…. it could be a powerful mix of emotion and gut reaction, a two way communication between viewer an artist, messages exchanged in a natural visual language… and THAT I could get into!

So, what was this mystical, mythical abstract exercise that kicked off my realizations?? Funny you should ask, ’cause its this weeks tweak!

Ahem.

BabySteps Towards Abstraction: The Exercise

(Adapted shamelessly from an exercise in chapter 7 of Drawing on the Artist Within)

You’ll need a sheet of blank white paper, and an ordinary pencil. No pens, no colors, no crayons.

1. Fold the paper in half, then in half again, and then a third time… so that when you unfold it, you have 8 equal sections, like so:

2. Label each section 1-8, with the following names: Anger, Joy, Peace, Sadness, Creativity, Anxiety, Inner Strength, Your Choice… like so:

3. Pick up your pencil; it’s nearly time to start. But first, a few rules: You can make any number of lines, marks or shapes you desire. You can press down lightly or with a lot of strength, you can use the eraser or even poke holes in the paper with the lead, if you like. There is no right or wrong way to draw these exercises, no shoulds or should nots, with one exception: You can not use words, pictures, letters or symbols.

No lightning bolts, no hearts, no flowers, no exclamation points. Don’t try and picture what the image will look like, just let it form itself. The idea here is to express yourself with a spontaneous language of line, to develop and learn a new universal vocabulary - to do that, you need to set aside your “native” language of symbols and ideaforms.

4. Read the word in the first rectangle, and think back to a time when you felt Anger. Let the emotion fill you for a minute - pooling within and then flowing from your core, up to your shoulder,and arm, flowing down to your hand, into the pencil and onto the page, where it finds form in marks that are equivalent to what you are feeling. The idea is for the marks to *look like* what you are feeling, a type of visual onomatopoeia.

You can add or remove lines, scribble or draw carefully - I’d tell you to let the lines decide what they will look like, but that would sound a bit wacky, so I’ll just tell you to let it happen. And don’t worry what anyone else will think of the drawings - this is a private and personal exercise, so don’t be embarrassed about what you think is a “lack of skill” or over emotional scribbling.

5. Move onto each new section and drawing when you’re ready. 15-20 minutes is about the average to complete all 8 drawings, but you can take more or less, as it suits you.

6. When you’ve finished, consider your drawings. Ask other people to look at them, and give their impressions. Ask others to do their own drawings, for the sake of comparison. Note whether or not the images seem to invoke the feelings or not… often, these sorts of drawings can almost become metaphysical (corny, I know, but true), as if taking on a life of their own and becoming Anger, or Joy, and not just being a scribble called Anger or Joy.

If you’d like, scan your page in, or take a photo - upload it to Flickr or Twitpic, and leave a note in the comments so others can compare results. (you can even ask me for my email, send the file to me, and I’ll put it online for you) It’s pretty interesting to see the similarities and differences from person to person.

And you’re done!

Now, I can’t promise you this is going to launch your career as a renowned abstract artist - but it should give you a better understanding of what at least *some* artists are getting at with all those images of nothing.

Most abstract paintings are not about hidden rabbits or ducks - they aren’t Rorschach ink blots or clouds for you to try and “see” things in (though that’s a worthy exercise, too). And inspite of the impression some ‘experts’ give, understanding abstract art doesn’t necessarily demand Masters degrees in Art History or Philosophy, and it isn’t all shocking self-congratulatory experiments in new mediums and technology.

Abstraction isn’t just the process of taking known objects and making them unrecognizable, it’s also the process of giving abstract concepts (like emotions) a tangible, fixed form - the exact same process as the mini-drawings you’ve done in this exercise.

Along with learning to read the meanings in the work of official “artists” , you can apply the concepts behind these mini emotional drawings to problem solving, gaining insight into your own feelings, focusing your own subconscious impressions. It’s a technique I’ve used on my own many times, and which I’ll write more about if there’s any interest.

But for now, you’ve taken a few crucial steps towards understanding an often ignored but crucial part of understanding abstract art - at least abstract art of the sort I’m prone to doing.

And yes, the examples used as illustrations here are mine. Feel free to ask about them… but only after you’ve finished this week’s tweak!