The idea comes first. Once the basic concept is in my I head though, I’m ready to paint. We painters have our favorites too. The creative process in these works, are a slow burn romance, assessing and re assessing as I add details, build & go on. Here's one of mine from last year, that was a couple months in the making of scribbles, marks & erasures. If you’re painting a person, place or thing, generally you know what they look like, so then you come up with a composition, then execute it to the best of your abilities. With my more abstract artworks, often times, at least with mine, you’re creating the image from scratch, from your imagination, a personified reality. For me, all the same design elements apply to abstract artwork as they do to representational. Most of you know I’ve been working toward merging both types into a singular expression of envisioned thought, Such is the case with “Love’s Lines, Circles, Angles & Rhymes” .
Here I took the idea from a photo of 2 people embracing in a space, created a composition and broke them down into their essential qualities, and elaborated on them. The Elements of Design are the things that as an artist I work with to create a design, or composition. The Elements are: line, shape, space, value, color and texture. The elements, or principles, of visual design include Contrast, Balance, Emphasis, Movement, White Space, Proportion, Hierarchy, Repetition, Rhythm, Pattern, Unity, and Variety. Again, with the information in front of you visually, representational work is potentially a much easier task. That said, in both disciplines, one of my concerns is that it not look static or contrived. I strive to create a seemingly spontaneous, instinctive, or intuitive yet intended , if you will, visual imagery. Intuitive painting is an opportunity to explore the inner self through the creative process in a safe, critic free environment. ... This approach to painting is focused on mindfulness, creative permission and the act of spontaneous expression., as in automatic.
In this case, after a 5 color splash painting in acrylic, including several interference colors, I sketched out the basic lines within the space & went to work with my oil paints. First blocking in various shapes in color. Once these features are in place the painting leads me as I analyze the various design elements as they begin to emerge. Each layer becomes a stream of conscious methodology of adding and subtracting from the whole and in part the mediums are the message. Adding oil paint to block in shapes, scratching through the layers and erasing as directed by the piece. After a second round with the oil paint, I begin adding line & scribbling with ebony, pencil, grease marker, & oil pastel…each giving their own aesthetic detail and sense of depth. Then enhancing the emerging mythology with 18k gold pen near completion as I add the 18k gold leaf, signing the completed piece.
These artworks evolve over time, with each medium and each layer, I leave and visit the painting, over and over again, evaluating the whole, over months until my vision is complete. I hope you’ve enjoy the journey, making part of it your own too. As always your comments & questions are most welcome.
~Richard
’Love's, Lines, Circles, Angles & Rhymes’ 40”x40” mixed media on canvas
’Love's, Lines, Circles, Angles & Rhymes 40”x40” mixed media on canvas.