What do these two paintings have in common and in what ways are they different?
So often people ask me how abstract painting is done. There's no simple answer, but there is this: the only difference
between a masterful abstract painting and a masterful realistic one is regarding imagery. In realistic painting, the imagery plays the major role, but in abstract painting, the subject is not always about imagery, rather about visual expression of something else. Some abstract painters are exploring rhythm, others might be exploring organization of visual elements, still others might be expressing a concept or an emotion.
In your comparison of the two paintings above, did you discover that there are only two things different about them? One uses imagery,
the other does not. One is horizontal and the other is vertical. Otherwise, they are pretty much the same.
Let's flip the abstract and take another look.
See what I did there? (Forgive me, Qiang Huang) I threw Qiang's painting into my painting app, and on my Wacom I
abstracted out the images then turned it vertically. Because it's a well composed realistic painting, it also holds together well as an abstract.
Now that's something you can have some fun with. Try doing an abstract version of one of your own realistic
paintings.
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