How to paint Abstract landscapes?

In a recently available workshop I taught, Abstracting the Landscape, our first task was to determine abstraction. We all know an abstract artwork once we see it, but what would be the certain attributes that produce a painting look abstract? As a starting point, I referenced this passageway from my book, Landscape Painting: Essential Concepts and Techniques for plein-air and Studio practise:

“Every thing of beauty — whether strictly realistic, completely abstracted, or somewhere in between — is built upon particular visual devices such price, shade, structure, shape, or perhaps the texture of the paint it self. In a representational work, these visual devices are securely connected to the topic, offering it the descriptive framework necessary to be regarded as the actual subject. But as a painting gets to be more abstract, the narrative subject becomes less obvious and also the visual knowledge shifts progressively toward the visual products by themselves.” (SeeThe Continuum Between Abstraction and Representation, below.)

The maximum misconception about abstract artwork usually because there is little or no representational subject, everything goes. This may not be further from truth. Great abstract artwork hires similar formal principles that great representational artwork does — range, kind, form, value, action, composition, color, etc. Really the only difference is the fact that in abstract work, the niche plays a far more recessive part. The visual product get to be the prominent force.

Modes of abstraction

If abstract artwork locations higher emphasis on the visual products than it can from the narrative subject, it appears to reason that we're able to cause abstraction by playing up a number of of the looks. The next task inside our workshop, after that, would be to determine the many modes of abstraction. Which specific aesthetics could we increase which will make our landscapes more abstract? I’ve identified four modes of abstraction: ultra-simplification, expressive brushwork, flattening the space, and saturated color. These settings may work alone or in combination to maneuver a-work toward abstraction.

Ultra simplification – Simplification is a core concept for several landscape painters. Through simplification, extraneous information is eliminated to reveal the primary patterns and forms. Whenever we simplify in the extreme, after that we also eradicate into the severe — that make the niche matter less identifiable. Radical simplifications could be the prominent mode of abstraction in Lightkeeper, above. picking a close-in vantage point — a “tight cropping” — can also be an ideal way to streamline and affect the means an ordinary subject is observed.

Painterly and expressive brushwork. There are no strong, gestural and expressive brushstrokes inside observable globe. Painterly and expressive mark-making tend to be interpretive techniques used by the painter. As brushstrokes are more triggered and expressive, linked with emotions . assert by themselves as independent elements from the paint surface that could only have a loose affiliation using the real landscape. The looser and more expressive the brushwork becomes, the more abstraction may be induced.

Flattening the space – Classical Renaissance area supports the impression of three-dimensions. This spatial illusion may be the main underpinning of representational painting. It stands to reason that whenever we disrupt this spatial impression, permitting the artwork to recommend flatness, then a number of our organizations to representation will also begin to dissolve. But this does not signify abstract work must be without depth. The impression of depth is a formal factor within artwork that can be ideal for both representational and abstract painters.