Finding Interesting Shapes for Abstract - Sterling Edwards Style - Sort Of

 Sterling Edwards recommends a method of finding interesting shapes for his abstract expressionist art.

Seems to work for him, so I'm giving a brief summary of it here, as I understand it.

First, find a picture of trash or something complex, probably not a picture you would normally be interested in painting as a whole. I used a picture of my husband's motorcycle, which isn't trash, but does 

have interesting shapes. We all used the same photo, but came up with very different compositions.

Cut a view finder out of a 3 x 5 card or piece of white paper. You want the hole in the center to be about 1.5 inches by 3 at the largest.

Move the viewfinder around your picture until you find shapes that interest you. Look for:

1. A definite center of interest. Using the "rule of thirds," place that point of interest on one of those points.

  **Rule of thirds: Divide your paper into thirds horizontally, then in thirds vertically until you have 9

      equal sections. There will be 4 points that intersect. Any of these points makes a good place to put your center of interest.

2. Diagonal lines or other shapes that enhance or point to that center of interest. 

3. No corner should be like any other. (If a corner has no shapes or lines in it, then no other corner can look like that.)

I found the shapes here interesting:

Divide your paper into 4. Draw your composition in the first section.

4. Limit your shapes to about 10-13. At first, since we are working small, I want to keep the shapes I draw to the bare minimum, leaving me room to expand on textures and values as I work through the picture.

Divide a 9 x 12 sheet of paper into fourths. Draw your design on one of the fourths. Refine it by joining shapes, creating new shapes, etc. until you are happy with the design. Then copy this design on each of the other rectangles on the paper. (We used tracing paper and transfer paper) On the last quarter, REVERSE your design by turning the tracing paper over and copying that. If your reverse design still looks good, you can be pretty certain you have a good composition. 

Below you see my sketch, copied 4 times. 

 

In the first picture, use Paynes gray or dark blue or other dark color to do a value study. Leave whites, especially around your area of interest. Paint your medium values gray. Do your dark value. You only need those three. 

In the next section, select a color scheme. I like to pick a color I love but don't get to use very often and build a color scheme around that. In this case, the colors wwew manganese blue and Cascade green.

In the third section, try another color scheme. I wanted to add the element of texture. Since these are small, I just wet the paper, dropped in colors (yellow and magenta), leaving whites around where I want the center of interest. (I did this on the fourth one also with a different color combination) I salted one and just dropped water drops onto the other before the paint dried to get small blossoms.

On these last two, I tried to leave more soft edges and concentrated on making things look more connected. I am still using the original composition as the "bones" of the painting, but trying new things.

This third picture used mostly a warm color scheme with red/yellows/oranges and a little blue, the complement of orange, around the center of interest. I darkened two of the corners to keep you in the picture. I used repeated patterns to add interest. I eliminated some shapes, combined others, and added a few new shapes.  

The fourth, "reversed" picture, I used analogous colors (blue, magenta, purple).

I combined some shapes. Did some negative painting in an otherwise quiet corner (bottom left). I allowed shapes to blend together. I tried to create a little form by shading some shapes, especially the long diagonals.

Here are all the four "possibilities" seen together.

The object of the exercise is, first, to discover a new way to find  interesting shapes for a composition. Second, to find where I want to put my values. Third, to experiment with color combinations, textures, and soft/hard edges. You need to understand this to be ready to do a larger abstract in this style. 

When we do the larger version, we will go through the same steps of finding a composition from a photo using a view finder. We'll do a small sketch, modify it, then draw it onto larger paper.