My general plan was to not have a plan. I felt that developing a motif would limit myself to what I thought would look good and I did not want to do that. I began working and used geometric lines on Painting 3 and organic shapes with Painting 2. I then continued my work with organic form in painting 1 but attempted to remain as random as possible when looking at form and not limiting myself to a shape necessarily.

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I made decisions based on what I enjoyed doing and what my gut told me was right (which is a great step for me!!!!!!!!). I have slowly begun to appreciate painting 1 in this list more and more because of this. The intuition that I used when it came to color and form was great! I blended and fuzzed colors out because I enjoyed doing it. I used a teal glaze at the end because my gut said so and I think it helped! (Keep in mind it was my first ever attempt at a glaze and I was just kind of going for it). I used liquid acrylics to start all other them because I loved working with them and they brought me joy.

 

Main questions I came across while working consisted of: 

• What would a limited palette look like? 

• How can I continue working with color without the piece looking just like a rainbow?

• How do leaving areas white in an abstract painting differ from how white is handled in other work? 

• IS IT OKAY TO USE SO MUCH BLACK??? I DON'T EVEN OWN BLACK PAINT?!?!

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Questions that I still have and ones that were not solved consisted of: 

• How do I work through not liking a piece? Painting fatigue is real and honestly that is how I felt with painting 2. That was the last painting I 'finished'. I just got to the point where I lost all motivation and honestly felt like I hated it and still do! I need to get better at working all paintings through to the end and not just the ones that I enjoy. This is one that I know I will completely paint something new over the top one day. 

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I loved being able to bring back some chunky palette knife work into these! That was one of my favorite mark making techniques to use in landscapes in painting 1! 

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I am glad this project is over. I feel as if I have definitely learned a lot about what I enjoy about painting and I am excited to bring some of this knowledge over into some of my own work. 

I am going to be going home for thanksgiving this weekend and I plan to return with lots of photographs of home for my senior show work. I feel as though I need to just start something. Have something going in the background that is my personal painting stress reliever. Maybe if I am working on something I enjoy in the background of other work it will motivate me? We shall see. I look forward to exploring light, emotion, and space in my future work.