Steps to Abstract Landscapes by Jo Sykes
Because many of us as artists start off painting landscape I thought I would share with you some observations I made recently about the approaches artists have taken in painting 'landscape' .
These approaches could indicate some steps to help us move from realistic landscapes to a more abstract interpretation of landscape.
It may prompt you to reflect where you are currently and how far along that scale of abstraction you want to go!
These approaches could indicate some steps to help us move from realistic landscapes to a more abstract interpretation of landscape.
It may prompt you to reflect where you are currently and how far along that scale of abstraction you want to go!
Recently we had a couple of Saturday sessions hearing and thinking a bit more about the impressionist's work and trying some of their technique and approach in painting the landscape in a new way.
In reaction to the way artists had been painting up to that point the impressionists were 'disrupting' reality by their use of colour, simplified shapes and obvious brush marks. They were 'abstracting' from the landscape they were in what they thought was the key elements, indicating them in a looser way on canvas so that the viewer of the painting could draw their own interpretation in what they saw.
This painting by member Rachael Singleton is an excellent, contemporary example of this.
In reaction to the way artists had been painting up to that point the impressionists were 'disrupting' reality by their use of colour, simplified shapes and obvious brush marks. They were 'abstracting' from the landscape they were in what they thought was the key elements, indicating them in a looser way on canvas so that the viewer of the painting could draw their own interpretation in what they saw.
This painting by member Rachael Singleton is an excellent, contemporary example of this.
On facebook I saw this example of a step further into abstraction by artist Judie Becker Jepson. Her mark making is really loose and suggestive but standing back from the painting I can clearly see an urban street scene.
Another step further - Gareth Edwards paints very atmospheric paintings, some inspired by remembered landscape, others imaginary, but his aim is to use colour and tone to create mood, feeling and depth in a painting, focussing on the reaction to a landscape.
A final observation, another step into abstraction, is described by David Mankin. He is an abstract landscape artist based in Cornwall, and he describes his process of taking smaller elements of the landscape that he feels adds to the whole, showing different viewpoints of shape on the canvas to represent those elements. He explains that 'we do not experience the big/ large elements in a landscape' as much as the 'small encounters that create our experience of landscape - glimpses, small occurrences at the corner of our eye....small elements that describe the big picture'.