"Abstraction"

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"The evolution of an image equals abstraction." When an image is altered, it is abstracted. Today's piece is 100% abstracted from the painting posted yesterday. It is part of my experimentation with different ways to abstract an image.

In this piece, I emphasized the horizontal bands from yesterday's painting. I used the painting as my reference point rather than the original photo reference which is somewhat like "morphing" the image into something completely different. The color palette was identical from yesterday, but the blending and application of paint is different. The "sgraffito lines revealing the first layer are reminiscent of the obvious weeds in yesterday's work. I even included the snow, but the cactus image is gone except for the color. And the lettering became more prominent and really is readable in the original although you might not be able to see it on your computer screen.

The whole point of explaining this is to throw out different ways of arriving at abstract work. Since letters are abstract, this is a subject of paramount importance to me. However, even without the lettering it could stand alone as an abstract piece of artwork.  If this is too much abstraction for you, another option is to pick and choose which image to be recognizable and which ones to abstract completely. I could have done this piece and made the cactus recognizable and even a few weeds surrounding the cactus. That would also be a very interesting experiment. 

As you can see, this is where my passion is presently, and perhaps you, too, will be inspired to think about your process in a totally different way. Don't ever dismiss those fleeting insights that come to mind for they could be the impetus to a completely different way of working. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.