Happy Easter! Be the Bunny!!

I have a little Easter / Art confession to relate. I had always been a representational painter, even studying in the old atelier traditions. But several years ago I found myself going over a lot to Walker Fine Art in the Golden Triangle here in Denver. As you know Bobbi shows mostly abstract work and I found myself really attracted to Miani Carnevale's work, among others. I love her beautiful colors and the 'distressed' yet glossy finish of her work. I decided I just had to try my hand at doing abstracts. But how? Where do I begin? Its easy with representational imagery, but where do you start with abstracts? Then one day I was sitting in Mile Hi church, and Dr. Roger was talking about effecting change in your life, by picking four areas in need of attention and begin doing affirmations to support those. For me, the four biggies were: Career, Health, Home, and Relationships. Alright, I had a concept, but how to portray? So later, there I was sitting on the floor in my studio with my gessoed 2x4' panel, still in representational mode I guess, when I remembered a fragment of a Picasso quote about being stymied by the white canvas, when he realized all you had to do was make a mark, any mark, and then you have something to work with. I looked over at my drawing implements pile. There sat pencils and my kneadable erasers in a purple plastic easter egg, and... Eureka! I grabbed the egg, separated the two halves, spilling the contents, and placing the widest half face down and traced four circles on the panel, representing my four challenges/worries and it all went from there. I finally had my starting point. And to this day, I still use geometrical elements in my work: circles, lines and squares. Above is a detail of the painting with those first four circles - 4 Affirmations, a 24x48 acrylic on panel. I have to thank my mom, and the easter bunny, for giving me that egg so many many years ago, which in perfect circuitous divine fashion, became the genesis for my abstract work! To learn more about Walker Fine Art and Miani Carnevale, click: ​www.walkerfineart.com/mianicarnevale/