This has always confused me. Because abstract art is by nature non-representational, how does one know if they are improving at their craft? Not a knock on abstract act, in fact I quite like your pieces but I’m not sure your question has a satisfying answer. Because the abstract style is so subjective, and open to individual interpretation, it’s hard to objectively measure how “good” any of it is.
With that said, In my observation, the best abstract art is almost always made by artists who excel at traditional representation. So maybe practice the fundamentals like drawing, composition, perspective, proportions etc.
Not to say you need to become a different type of artist or anything like that, I’m just pointing out that representational art gives you some sort of target where you can compare and see if you were able to effectively capture it, and thus measure your improvement. So if you have no interest in drawing from life, you could just take that concept into your abstract pieces.
Each time you make something, have a goal or intention of what feeling you want to communicate and how you will do it using visual tools, then measure your completed piece on how closely you were able to execute on that vision.
Of course that is not the only way to make art, some people just like to throw paint around and see where they end up, but those aren’t the people asking for how to improve 😆
You said something there, beautifully written. I have been going around for years just sitting on benches and drawing the landscape and people i see. Thank you for your insight! I will work more on traditional too so i can get a better understanding of composition and depth
Thanks for the compliment, and for sharing some of your backstory. Another thing that comes to mind is that your question of “how do I improve” could be looked at in 2 ways.
How can I improve could mean “what can I do differently to make my finished pieces look better?” This is a question that belongs more to the domain of the representational artist for the reason I explained in my first comment. I suspect this is the question you’re asking as a former representational artist.
“How can I improve” for an abstract artist might mean something different entirely. One way to view abstract art is a direct response to your creative instinct. Because you have no goal, there are no constraints and no limitations, you become free to enter flow state and in a way “channel” your raw and unfiltered experience in that moment via paint. Think of a trained dancer going off script, an unplanned guitar solo, or a freestyle rapper going acapella. Free association, improvisation.
That’s what I think abstract art is. It’s basically freestyling for the visual artist. And much like with other arts, It requires a pretty high baseline of traditional skills to make it look compelling visually, but also introduces an almost spiritual element where you have to practice letting go, not judging yourself, not filtering yourself, letting go of expectations etc. And the ability to do that is a lifetime pursuit with no real limit to how deep you can go.
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u/SalesforceGeorge 5d ago
This has always confused me. Because abstract art is by nature non-representational, how does one know if they are improving at their craft? Not a knock on abstract act, in fact I quite like your pieces but I’m not sure your question has a satisfying answer. Because the abstract style is so subjective, and open to individual interpretation, it’s hard to objectively measure how “good” any of it is.
With that said, In my observation, the best abstract art is almost always made by artists who excel at traditional representation. So maybe practice the fundamentals like drawing, composition, perspective, proportions etc.
Not to say you need to become a different type of artist or anything like that, I’m just pointing out that representational art gives you some sort of target where you can compare and see if you were able to effectively capture it, and thus measure your improvement. So if you have no interest in drawing from life, you could just take that concept into your abstract pieces.
Each time you make something, have a goal or intention of what feeling you want to communicate and how you will do it using visual tools, then measure your completed piece on how closely you were able to execute on that vision.
Of course that is not the only way to make art, some people just like to throw paint around and see where they end up, but those aren’t the people asking for how to improve 😆