Designing Abstraction

Artist Statment

For this project, we began by practicing creating the elements of art and principles of design. We were given a template with 49 mini boxes to combine the different elements and principles together. The next step of our project, was choosing one or more of the boxes that we were drawn to and creating an abstract art piece that extended the composition. For my artwork, I decided to focus mainly on shape and variety, however, I knew I wanted to use paints, so I also incorporated elements and principles of color and pattern. Abstract art has never been my strong suit. I feel like I am a more literal artist, and enjoy creating pieces that send a message or have a clear interpretation, so this project posed as a nit of a challenge for me in the beginning stages. I had originally started this project with the aim to create simple shapes, like different-sized triangles, circles and squares, but as I got more comfortable, I began to experiment with larger shapes and thick lines that would extend across the page, and added patterns in the areas I wanted to leave white to make it more visually interesting and creative. I decided to name this piece "Space Junk" because some of the shapes look like broken pieces of a satellite in space.

We were allowed to use any media of our choice for our piece. In my artwork, I decided to stray away from my usual watercolor paints. I knew I wanted something a bit thicker and more vibrant and saturated, so I chose gouache paints. I began by lightly tracing out my shapes in a 2B pencil, and then went in with black paint to fill the background. I found that this helped to create emphasis on the shapes, which I painted red, pink, yellow, green, blue and light and dark purple, and used layers of white on the lines. After the piece was fully dried, I then went over the patterns with a black gel pen.

I went through a few different processes while creating this piece. I had many trials and errors and found myself restarting multiple times. I had many different ideas, but as soon as I began sketching, I found that they each had a very realistic look to them, and did not fit the abstract themes. I found that I had to give myself a small break and completely disregard any of my original ideas, put on calming music, and just draw what I felt and heard. I found that this method really worked for me. Another process I went through while creating this piece was trying out new materials. Although I am familiar with paints, I have never used gouache before. I had to experiment with the amount of water I was adding to my paint, whether I wanted it to be really saturated or slightly opaque, and mixing to get different shades of certain colors. Overall, although this project came out simple, I am pleased with how all of the shapes connect and flow nicely together, and how the background really helped everything stand out.