Abstraction through Design workshop

I participated in a three day abstract watercolor workshop lead by John Salminen

I am not an abstract painter, but over the course of the workshop I discovered that thinking about what makes an abstract painting is interesting can help make more interesting paintings.  Without a defined subject it is the elements of the painting that make it interesting.  The play of colors, dark against light, warm against cold, lines against shapes.

We went through a process of creating a very busy line drawing of random shapes. 

Then we used the lines to help us create a painting with a three armed white object, more or less in the center of the paper, bounded by color.  

The next step was to add some black shapes to define some contracting edges.  Then additional warm and cold colors were added to create interest and movement.  Once I started painting it became easier to add more colors to the painting.

The final shapes we added were cut from magazines and applied to the painting using matte media.  The resulting paintings were very interesting.  This was the hardest part for me.  It took a long time to find items to use and to decide where to add them.  I'm still not sure it is done.