Lesson 6: Abstract methods:
Emotion, Expression and Messages In Art.
Art can facilitate two processes of the human mind. Honesty or dishonesty. It can reveal or cloud over. It can produce clarity or confusion. For an explanation of this statement read Longer Term Drawings Are Much More Planned".
- Many artists learn to do abstract art before they progress to a more formal art education. This is true particularly in schools where the children are taught 'what the perhaps untrained teacher is able to manage.'
- I tend not to have an opinion about this because some people seem to be able arrive at their chosen destination in this manner. It could never have worked for me - because I always want to be able to work from the known and understood.
- It might be sensible to think that a well-rounded, balanced artist would dabble in all types and styles of art - at least initially.
- Sometimes I wonder whether a really balanced person would specialise in one aspect of art at all? I know that I have had to. This has been mainly because I needed to have a professional focus. If I lived in a shack over looking the waters of Stradbroke Island -who knows - I might keep on experimenting, inventing and reinventing for the rest of my life. But financially that has never been possible.
- So the point I am making is that during the learning process some artists come from the abstract and work towards the realistic. Others start from a burning desire to capture what they see. They operate as I hope to do - almost like an experiential, emotive camera that can think and make selective choices. And they begin to move into a more purist, idealistic, simplified genre once the initial academic learning has been consolidated.
- Most of do not have the time and the resources to be able to have it all.
