New abstract, dedicated to Paula Hallman via flora Bowley

This spring I was looking around online and stumbled upon an artist that offers online courses and monthly newsletters to help you create colorful, energetic abstracts. I have been dabbling with abstracts for a couple of years on and off, but nothing has really lit my fire.

Until Flora Bowley. I read her blog and I viewed an online sample of one of her newsletters and I was just feverishly wanting to try it. I made my plan to start the very next day after seeing the video. I gathered my tools and had everything ready. I woke up at 4 AM (did not say I GOT up, just woke up). Plans for colors and compositions were running through my head. I was so excited.

I got up and got my coffee, did my daily devotional readings, and then checked my email and FB. It was on FB that I discovered that a dear artist friend of mine, Paula Hallman, had passed away. I don't see Paula but one week a year when we are neighbors at the Red River Revel in Shreveport, but we were great friends. I "got her" and she "got me". Her passing hit me harder than I could have imagined.

I thought to myself, "there is no way I will be able to paint today, much less explore a new style". But after a few more tears a realization hit me. Paula could not paint that day, but I could paint. And I did. I went on to paint straight through from 8 AM till 7 PM pretty much nonstop. Something I never do.

I discovered that I loved Flora Bowley's system. I love the music that she paints by, I love the freedom, the depth, the energy. I love that I can paint using her format, but in the end, the paintings look nothing like hers. They are definitely mine.

So I am sharing this first one that I did (with more to follow). In the "system" that Flora teaches one of the ways to start a painting is to write words on the canvas as the first layer. You then go on to add other layers on top which eventually cover up most of the bottom layer. But in this painting, when it was all over and I stopped to look at it.....you can still see part of one of the words I had started with.

I had written Paula.  

Love you girl!  I know your spirit is exploring the universe and you are seeing the places you have traveled to in your dreams...