Acrylics and abstractions

I have tried to make successful abstract paintings with oils and it’s just not quite been worth the effort and materials.

I have made a recent change to my studio setup, however, that has allowed me the luxury of working with large formats and with acrylics, and their fast-drying properties. I have divided my studios into oils which I am doing downtown in a very tight and small environment, and working in acrylics and larger formats at home where I have a larger workspace and more direct access to water.

I have also started watching videos by the abstract intuitive artist Betty Krause. I have spent some time with Bob Burridge and his videos, and I feel the two are related but have such different energies as to seem unrelated at all. But approach to working and color are right there together and have been a tremendous help to me in freeing up my brush strokes and understanding color a bit better.

I know acrylics and oils have different luminosities and don’t look at all like one another, but it is helpful to understand how yellow stands out from a purple field and vice versa within the hour and not the month. Three undercoats in oil are still waiting to be dry enough for a second coat. I get dizzy thinking about the eighth and ninth coats. Will we be on the planet that long?

Here is a gallery of my first-level exploration. I want to avoid the word “flower” or “floral” in the titles of the pieces, but to me, they are very floral in nature. I can almost feel the wind blow through the flower field.

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