Abstracts have burst forth....

For a while now I have been wanting to do really abstract abstracts....just purely color with the idea of giving the viewer the opportunity to make of it what they will. Sort of like looking at a cloud filled sky and finding the dinosaur or horse or old lady....you get the idea. Ever since I was young I have gotten true pleasure from looking at colors and combinations of colors.

So today I got up in a pretty crabby mood and did some boring things---housework, mailing off for rebates, just yucky stuff. Then the weather started getting weird...really, really windy...the dogs got all antsy and I found out it was supposed to get really bad. My meeting for tonight was called off so I thought...I will paint! I went into my studio and the vibes were just weird...I just couldn't find anything I really wanted to paint. So I took this painting that I had been playing with for a long time. It started out as a painting of a swirled cactus. It was okay, but no one ever loved it. So for a while I had been taking the paint that was left over on my pallette each time I painted and applying it to this painting. Well, today I decided to finish it. It has so many layers and so much texture! And because it includes the paint from many of my other paintings, it has all sorts of colors that I just love. The title matches my mood this morning..."Too Busy Thinking" It is 30X30 (1 1/2" gallery wrap) and will sell for $700.

This next one is a paint-over of a painting that has been hanging around my studio for a while. I had taken interesting colors that I like and done geometric shapes and lines in different places all interconnecting in some way. It just never did work...at all. It looked like a third-grader had done it and by the way, that is pretty much an insult to third graders! Well, today in my weird little mood I was in, I just mixed and applied color like I was on fire or something. I had a frame for it already and when I was done I put it in the frame and I just love it! My criteria for a painting that I really like(whether my own or someone else's) is that you not be able to get all the info you need by just looking at it once. I don't like paintings (and this is just me, so don't anyone get offended) that have green grass, blue sky, red barn, etc, etc. I like to look and say"oh, a red barn." And then have to look back and say "is that specks of pink on the side of that barn?". Well, let me just tell you there is no way to look at these paintings and see all you need to see in one glance. This one is 24x30 and is titled "Something to Talk About" It sells framed for $700.

So by then I had the fever! What could I paint on top of next? Well, I had another painting of a saxaphone player on the riverwalk in New Orleans. He had no lips, there was just never anything to love about this painting except that I did like the colors. Well, sax man has a new life as this awesome abstract! This is probably my favorite and that's hard to say cause I like them all. This one is 24X30 and sells framed for $700. I titled it "Adrift" because I wanted to. How's that for a reason? By the was they are all so much cooler in person, but that's just the way it is.

Okay, now I would like to open things up and hear some real honest critiques. I have never done but two abstracts before in my life. I truly feel like something weird happened today. I had been wanting to try this for so long and then "BOOM" these burst forth. If I am headed down a path of total crap here, someone needs to tell me. I can't tell you how much fun I had doing these. If I need to just do them for fun and hang them in my garage, let me know.