Over the past couple of days i played around with several ideas on how to make my “Abstracted painting” more appealing, at least to me. Experimented quite a bit with color, of course; but also with lines, direction, varied brush and palette knife strokes. I got rid of the large shapes that looked like rocks — because that is how they began their artistic life. Did that because I’m trying here to be abstract, so didn’t want too many images that could be realistically identified. Here’s the result: quite different from what i posted a few days ago.

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In painting class a couple of weeks ago we were given assignment of using a photo of something realistic and turning it into an abstract painting. I chose a scene from the mountains along a river .

I first decided I would use colors mainly on red end of color spectrum- in keeping with the work we had just done on analogous colors. I did add some grays ( the browns really are part of red family) but soon decided that rocks were too close to really looking like rocks

Eventually i decided i wanted more variety. Thought about adding contrast by using complementary colors, but really don’t like green and red together. So settled on a turquoise which i mixed up (i know — it doesn’t look turquoise in the photo, but it is), as this is supposed to be “harmonious” with the reds. Used palette knife in some parts on the right hand side of the painting to give some texture and tried using brush strokes going in different directions for same reason. Anyhow, teacher has not seen any of this, so i look forward to hers (and yours) comments.

Since i last posted about this painting, I’ve mainly worked on adding foliage all over the place — in the trees, on the ground, on the bridge itself. Also repainted the bridge poles and tried to improve the sunlight-shadows on the bridge path and posts. (Bern suggested I repaint parts of the bridge closest to the viewer, in order to improve perspective. This is a valid suggestion which I nevertheless decided against at this point. Perhaps later – for now I’ve had enough of this one.)