Sea Monster and Gold Cats

A sea monster and a clowder of gold cats? How did I arrive at that? A few days ago I began another of Tracy Verdugo’s on-line classes Jump into Abstract Paintimg. There, I went straight to Lesson 2 called Mark Makimg. The cats were intentional but the sea monster happened to crop up mysteriously. How can that be?

Mark Making

This lesson involves drawing random shapes and blobs on paper to begin with, hence making marks. By using a limited palette of colors we focus more on what marks we draw rather than the colors.. We can then take it on from there and develop our thoughts further to create something interesting. Today I decided to stay away from pink, my favorite color, and go for something totally different yet stunning: turquoise, antelope brown and gold!

The steps involved makimg imprints, stenciling, brushwork and using a satay stick to spread the inks.

In a Mess

I could’ve stopped right there because the painting looked so cool already. Nevertheless I decided to continue and start adding more on top in hope I could come up with something even better. Was I wrong! The center looks like a mud puddle now. There is too much turquoise on the sides too. Covering it all up by makimg a negative space painting out of it was not an option since the center of the painting looks so messy. I was just not happy with it.

A Quick Turnaround

Then I looked more closely at the painting and noticed on the bottom left was an incidental creature lurking about. Could it be a dragon? As the theme is potentially water, it could be a sea monster! And if I turn the painting from landscape to portrait, it is more noticeable. A long as the stenciled cats don’t end up upside down I was happy. Luckily they looked fine, cute even! All I did was doodle half a flower in turquoise on top of the muddy bit so it blemds in with the other loopy shapes. Now it looks as though the monster is bobbing out of the water. In fact you can see how the cats and the creature are almost reflecting from the horizon. And now I’m content with the result!

In this exercise Tracy demonstrates various ways in which to develop your paintings, once you make your marks. One of them includes negative space painting. For this one, though, I went my way and created something conveniently out of a mess. Another way to make your marks. And another cute piece with a sea monster and gold cats!