More Experimental Drawing (1)

Have had a bit of a break from painting - first there was the exhibition, then I was ill, followed by my London trip (and visit to the Diebenkorn), etc. Must be my longest break for a while. But I'm back into work mode now. Thought I'd try some more experimental 'expressive drawing' to get me up to speed. (I started this in early March - Blog Post 2nd March - based on the book 'Expressive Drawing' http://aimoneartservices.com/expressive-drawing-book-/view/378)

When I left off, I had just finished doing Line and Mark with this drawing - the aim was to create a 'conversation between expressive lines'. This was to be done spontaneously - no pre-planning at all - and I was seeking to have a dialogue between two or three linear 'characters'. It's quite hard doing these things at the time and very interesting to look back at the result now.

It's interesting to look at this drawing having been to the Diebenkorn exhib. I noticed that in his earlier abstract phase he used line a lot and I did like the effect. I did feel a strange sense of satisfaction after doing this drawing.

Now I had to start exploring 'shape'. What type of shape?

• Geometric & organic
• Static and directional
• Simple & complex
• Angular and curvilinear
• and more

and then create 3 shape compositions using, first, one circle, one square and one equilateral triangle. Here are the results. Looks like I ended up exploring relationships between the shapes - from stand-off to touching and then overlapping - my logical mind at work, I think.

In the next exercise I had to use an oval, an elongated triangle and a rectangle. Here's how they turned out.

At this stage I'm not really composing the picture in a premeditated way, just being intuitive with these shapes and then looking at the differences between the two sets of drawings. I think the second set of drawings gives a greater sense of tension and movement than the first.

In the final drawing exercises relating to 'shape', I was asked first to mix angular and curvilinear shapes in a composition. Here's what I did.

And then I was asked to mix organic and geometric shapes in compositions.

Interesting results for me. I've never created any drawings like these before. It was challenging and exciting, almost liberating, and has definitely got me thinking about the role played by shapes in a drawing/painting. I feel as if I'm learning something here!  Letting go of realism, perhaps?