Abstracts in Acrylics (Ready to Paint)
I'm a great fan of the ready to paint series - for those who are somewhat fearful of applying paint to paper and of getting the drawing right these take all the worry away and allow the budding artist to create a work with confidence and of course once that hurdle is over the can use the tracings to devise their won colour schemes and gradually built self-assurance and create their won artworks. Its the first step that's often the hardest, and the tracings take away that fear. Now applying the concept to abstract seems odd to me. Chatting to a friend however she pointed out that while i'm happy to throw paint around, ( yep -throw, that's right - you should see the shed windows sometimes...) let colours drip and merge and add in anything to hand such as paper , straw, feathers and see what develops, some people feel intimidated by abstracts so i looked at this book in a different light to see what it has to offer those who want to approach abstract but don't know or are fearful of starting. I discovered that the trace outs can have the same usefulness as with those of more realistic artworks - they can be used and colours copied, then the students own colours substituted and confidence is built up over time. So beginning with Venetian bubbles, inspired by bright murano glass the first image is based around primary colours and simple squares, rectangles and bubbles and has quite a structured approach moving on to a similar work but slightly looser, an interpretation of Barcelona. This time the same basic shapes are used but with different colours and the addition of some metallic leaf ( i love that stuff!) Dani then moves on to an interpretive landscape in vibrant blues and reds painted over texture medium, one titled fire and Ice which is moving towards less structure and more visualisation and finally onto freestyle where the basic trace out is there but the end result is made up by the student.  So having wondered what on earth this was about I've found that actually for those people who hesitate and yet want to loosen their work and move into Abstraction this book will prove extremely useful. If this is you, or a friend and you find your arm hovering tentatively with a drop of paint on the brush but you don't know where to put it - buy this book. Its a great beginning into Abstract.-JeannieZelos.com