Exploring Abstraction

A slight detour from my coursework as I did a workshop with Amanda Hislop and it has relevance to an earlier post on this blog. I commented that I had been struggling with trying to make my work slightly less literal so when the opportunity to take part in a workshop on abstracting landscapes came along I grabbed it with both hands.

Amanda first had us making loose marks reminiscent of a landscape on an A3 sheet of paper using a Cola pen dipped in ink. I had never come across one of these before but it is apparently literally made from a piece of metal cut from a cola can taped around a pencil or similar stick.

We then rubbed the paper with a wax candle loosely following the lines we had made, stuck on some torn scraps of tissue and tea bag paper, then painted on washes with diluted ink and Koh-i-noor paints.

Once our 'masterpieces' were dry we folded and cut them then folded them up into a zig-zag book form.

 The resulting small areas produced some surprisingly beautiful abstract landscapes. Not all were quite so inspiring, but some were definitely worth cutting out and sticking into a sketchbook for further work... some stitching and further drawing, continuation of lines etc.

I had felt completely out of my comfort zone at the beginning of the weekend but was delighted with the results and it is a process I will definitely use again.