This class is for people that want to learn how to "think" abstract. If you're like me, I look at a blank canvas and have no idea where to start to make an abstract, but you really really want to be able to create one. This class will kick your creative juices into high gear and give you ideas and techniques that will enable you to think, envision and create abstractly.

This is probably the most lenient class you will ever take. Abstraction has very few rules and is perhaps the freest expression of art there is. In this vein, you are allowed to use anything you want to make your pieces. You can use paint, ink, crayons, markers, colored pencils, but it would be best if you used something that will allow you to create color in your images. The only thing is no matter what media you decide on, you must know how to use that media, as this class only teaches technique, not use of any particular media.

What is abstract art?
Basically abstract art is a style of painting where color and form are the main subject matter, rather than something that is totally recognizable and tangible. Sometimes it is recognizable to a degree as to being a very simplified form, without a lot of detail, leaving the essence of what was the tangible form to begin with. Forms are reduced to essential shapes and left for the viewer to interpret their own meaning. Other paintings, have no representational form to begin with but make a collage of shapes, colors, textures that all interact and co mingle on the canvas.

Type of abstract art
CUBISM was attributed to Pablo Picasso as the creator in the early 20th century. It is characterized by simplification and fragmentation of natural forms into abstraction, often geometric forms.

Georges Braque (13 May 1882 - 31 August 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed cubism.

Analytic Cubism (1907-1912) These paintings used very limited palettes of black, brown, gray and off white and were rigidly geometric and most compositions were intricate.

Synthetic Cubism (1913 through the 1920s), paintings were simpler forms based to a some extent on natural objects, using brighter colors.

Online art supply:
The following are places that I deal with and have had very good results. The prices are good, service is great and shipping is fast. These are by no means the ONLY online art supply stores and neither I or LVS can guarantee any transactions with these companies.

Blick Art Materials Large selection of art supplies.

Distortion

On of the many techniques abstractionists use is distortion. This could be distortion of a form, or of color or both.

This category would probably come under the Expressionistic abstract painting, as in expressionism, the reality of the form has little consideration; the sole aim to show the free expression of the form according to what the artist wishes to show.

Take for example, Amedeo Modigliani's "Portrait of Blaise Cendras (1918). If poor Mr. Cendras actually looked liked this, we surely would feel very sorry for him. This is a perfect example of distortion of form, although unless Mr. Cendras suffered from jaundice, we could also add distortion of color too.

Distortion is a simple and fun way to achieve an abstract painting. Basically, you start out with some kind of form, human, nature, geometric, etc and then distort it. If you have a computer program, this is help you see many possibilities until you find one that you want to paint.

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