I’ve been reading The Art of Abstract Painting, by Rolina van Vliet. It’s an interesting book, and guides you through a few different ways of taking an image as a starting point and working it in the abstract. It seems like an interesting technique to use for designing tapestries. (Just in time for the class!)

I started with this watercolor:

Quick sketch of basic shapes

Watercolor & ink, primary colors

Ink sketch, less details

Mostly monochromatic watercolor

Moving the shapes around

None of the quick studies I did are anything I particularly like, which is fine, as that isn’t the point. Rather, it’s the difference between the last image, and the original watercolor, the way there seems to be almost no connection between them, that really interests me:

Pastels, softening the shapes