Day Four- SOGOTP

SOGOTP

20 x 16"

acrylic on canvas

© Nicki Ault, 2012

Ta Daaaaaa!

The morning of Day Four was spent doing a bit of a critique and talking about inspirations; things that get the ideas flowing or get us in the right zone or mood to paint. For me it is obviously nature- especially wild spaces with little sign of human presence. I take a ton of photos and use those as tools to inspire my work. Many of us also said that music was an important part of our inspiration/mood setting process. (Here is a link to Jonas Gerard painting to music- I love it). And of course other artists inspire me- including many of you who read this blog (thank you!).

Our exercise idea for that day was to shift and exaggerate, perhaps with the scale, colour, value or maybe with blending or not blending. We were to shift something dramatically in the painting, possibly heightening the intensity of a colour.

As I mentioned in the last post I was determined to step beyond my comfort zone and get a little crazy with the abstract business, but I needed to get away from the studio and find solitude. I decided to drive to Spruce River which is a place of endless inspiration for me and although I intended to go alone I came across another artist who was having a tough time. At first I was blathering on about what a gorgeous day it was and then when I actually looked at her face I realized she was upset. Who hasn't been there? Man, I think in 2007 I cried the entire week when I went back to the campus after a six year hiatus! You gotta release it! Anyway, it seemed that she was in need of some Spruce River therapy, so I invited her to come with me. We had a wonderful time and each found our own quiet place in the forest along the river to do what we needed to do.

And what did I do? A really horribly awful, brutally ugly reflection of horizontal branches in the river. BAD! When I got back to the studio I really couldn't have hated it any more than I already did so I decided to SOGOTP (shit or get off the pot)... pardon my language :o) . No more messing around- I decided to go abstract all over it!

I tried hard not to care about the outcome and just tried to enjoy the experience of experimenting. I began blocking areas with dark colours and isolating a few of the marks I didn't mind- mainly the green/yellows. Really I just mucked around and played, which was obviously very fun. I actually painted this horizontally, but when I was finished a new artist friend came over and started turning it from side-to-side to see how it "read" from different positions. We settled on it this way. Thanks B.C-W.!

And that, my friends, is as wild and crazy as I got all week! The last day produced probably my favorite painting of the week, but it was actually more based in realism and I will show it to you next time.