Nature abstracts

Like most people I know, I used to make fun of abstract paintings :) ..as in you could get away with positioning scribbles as art :) But I have always been curious to find out what abstract art could really mean.

So I started exprimenting with abstraction and have done a few paintings this past year...

My initial attempts were just color play ...using a limited pallette, and without any specific object in mind, I started to paint as my hand would lead me, and 'Hope' is the result of that. It was great experience in just understanding colours, blending, and brush strokes.

I was satisfied with the end result, but I was not willing to accept yet that this is all what 'abstract' art is.

It was also about the same time that I had done 'Bamboos' - this was the beginning of what I would like to classify as 'nature abstracts'. In this painting, I was'nt focussed on makingan exact replica of the Banboo shoots itself ...not to try and replicate the size/ proportion of the actual shoots...instead I focussed on what inspired me about the bamboos - the angles, and the color variations.

Soon after this, I did "Summer rain" - again, my approach was to focus on what the particular object/ scenery/ moment had that was inspiring me to draw/ paint....in this case it was pattern of the drops falling on the window pane, and how thery merged into small streams of water.

These were all done almost a year back, and after that I had not attempted abstracts until very recently.

With "Dancers" - I tried this again - this was inspired by a photo of 2 Rajasthani dancers - there was a lot of movement / color and the swirls of their skirts was very insteresting. That is what I wanted to capture in the painting - I wanted to convey movement, and color, and hence there is no detail of the women's face.

This - the "Gulmohar canopy" - was inspired by a photo a friend had posted on Facebook (sorry, I can't remember who it was ...it was a very beautiful photo..so Thanks, friend) - The wonderful , randomness of the branches, the speckles of flowers and leaves - was irresistible ...I had to paint it :)

This time I got a little adventurous, and tried this on a 2 ft by 2feet canvas...I wanted the focus to remain on the few main branches, and capture the randomness of the smaller branches as well as the speckles of flowers/ leaves. I started by trying out a few thumbnail sketches to find the arrangement I liked.

I wanted the background to be as neutral as possible (unlike in "Summer rain") and painted with a lot of white mixed with prussian blue and raw umber. Then I painted in the large branches, with a myriad of colours. At this point the 3 large branches were the guding lines for the painting, and I wanted the flowers, leaves and smaller branches to remain as subtle and with as little detail as possible....only wanting to capture the random arrangement. So, I got a little more adventurous, and made a watery mix of my colors and just made "drops and streaks" of paint on the canvas for the leaves, flowers and braches.

It was an exhilarating experience and I finally feel like I have made some progress in abstract art ...at the very least I now have a different perspective of viewing nature !
I hope to continue on this journey and more experiment in abstracts ...