As an artist who focuses my work on realism I enjoy abstraction and the the visual stimulation or awe I might get by looking at an abstract painting. However I still very much prefer Realism because like I shared in class I prefer to see the world as it actually is not how I want it to be. It might be fun to imagine but, almost everyone forgets to value the beauty in the world as it is.
When I was finger painting it was interesting because when I normally paint, I usually get paint everywhere and a lot of the time end up using my hands anyways but, I am still always conscious of what I am trying to paint and use my hands to give desire affects. I have painted an abstract painting before, during my sophomore year of high school when I was getting discouraged from painting. It started to become a chore rather than a hobby. People kept requesting paintings I didn’t want to do but I needed money. To give myself a break and to bring me back into my hobby of painting I tried out abstraction and actually made a painting I was into. I don’t have a picture of it unfortunately because I gave it away but it was lots of different color paint strokes and splatters. There was a giant white question mark spattered on top with a black silhouette. The finger painting reminded me a lot of that painting because I didn’t completely let myself get dissolved in what I was doing. Instead I had a goal to create an expression of how I might try to see the world (rainbow explosion with burst of lights) but still add dark elements that creep in on the borders. I wanted to portray how people like myself try to ignore or chose not to see bad things.
One might think that when I am trying to paint a super realistic painting I’d be focused and intensely involved in my painting and when I paint an abstract finger painting I’m in this subconscious part of my brain. It is actually really the opposite and for me Abstract painting take a lot more brain power while painting in realism I’ll end of painting for hours not even realizing or remembering what I was thinking, similar to dreaming.
Painting with my finger did inspire me to want to try more. I am really interested in doing a realism painting on a large canvas like the famous finger painting artist, Iris Scott. I think her work is really inspiring and I love to try one day.
Gina's Blog 