A different approach

I left this unfinished painting out in the cold for nearly a week. I had started with no idea of what to paint because thinking about the subject usually results in procrastination. So I started by doing a background wash using a big flat paint brush. Then the repetitive action of brushing with regular strokes got boring and I picked up a sponge that was lying around. I dipped it into my glob of acrylic paint mixed with some water and then discovered that I could make interesting patterns with it.

After playing around and getting a feel of using the sponge in a spontaneous manner, I created a background with what I thought looked like waves. A thought came out of the blue to put in shapes that are associated with the colour and the sea. The crescent moon was painted in because I wanted to put in yellow on the blue to brighten up the background. Then I put in more crescent shapes to represent boats. The dolphin, whale and starfish followed next because these are sea creatures that I have much admiration for.

I painted an aeroplane and a ship to represent my travel experiences. By that time, I only had a blue background with blue shapes that outline the basic structure to support the subject that I had yet to materialise in my thoughts. After spending some time contemplating, I decided that the main 'actors' on my canvas would be flowers and especially those I had had some prior practice in drawing or painting. Eventually my boats doubled up as vessels for flowers to bloom on my canvas.

I painted the flowers carefully, layering paints of different colours over and over again to make the flowers come alive. These colours not just the dominant colours of the respective flowers but also colours that they absorb from their surroundings. Painting iin this manner is all consuming because it requires intense concentration. Having done the flowers, the painting looked a little bare. I took a break of a day or two before adding in the leaves.

Not all the colours applied to my flowers are faithful to nature. That is what I like about art - it's all in the eye of the beholder. For me, the colours come partly from recall based on observation, partly from referencing books and photos and partly from how I had felt at the time of painting.

A friend once said that doing abstract is fun and anyone can do it. I am not ready to do abstract paintings, not yet because I believe that if I do not understand what I see thoroughly, my 'abstract' would be child's play, anyone can do it when what I think is that abstract paintings are based on a lot of thinking and feeling before one can look at it and see its depth instead of superficial shapes and colours. So for now, I stick to subjects that are identifiable. So you can see the hibiscus, the sunflower, the Heliconia and the morning glory. Maybe the passiflora lauriflora (passion fruit flower), the banana flower (golden lotus), Air Simpoh and the ginger flower.

Overall, I am satisfied with my progress in painting the flowers as I learned through trial and error while trying to recall what I had learned in my painting lessons a few years back. Learning through doing - nothing beats this kind of learning because it is experiential, hands-on and absolutely engaging. Give me a manual and I will burn it!

This is one of my more enjoyable endeavours in painting because of the approach of just letting ideas evolve and watching the subject develop on the canvas instead of painting what is there before me like doing a still life or a portrait. The painting is still not completed. I am kind of stuck here because I find the background so chillingly cold. My son says leave the background alone and I am very tempted to change the colour. So I am just leaving it as it is for now...till the next wave of inspiration arrives to complete it.