APD Week 8 - Play and Abstraction (Art Peices)

By Peter Mavromatakis

Top 16 shown on MAGI, 57 images are in the filelist, from 3-59. I have not included 1 and 2 as they don't add much value.

Context
In the class, we saw many examples of abstract animation. I did not want to make one as it seemed like that was a common approach to the topic and I wanted to do something different. I had the idea to make art drawings that are abstract instead. I saw this video on Facebook https://fb.watch/5gETVAxy07/ . It got me to start thinking creatively about the topic and thus, I began searching on Google for different abstract ideas, and found this image (https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/mosaic-abstraction-vector-508037). I attempted to create something similar in this triangle style to get started, as I have no prior experience with abstract art, so doing this was a good warm-up in the journey of creating all the abstract art I made. “There is a large overlap in image properties between abstract art and traditional art styles” (Redies & Branchmann, 2017). After reading this, I understood that abstract art is a topic that does not require a checklist. Rather, it is a unique genre of art but also a free and fun one. So, when making this project, I opted to go for something that represented my insight into this topic. I experimented, tinkered, and explored different ideas, brushes, effects and more. “We can safely assert, even, that human civilization has added no essential feature to the general idea of play. Animals play just like men. We have only to watch young dogs to see all the essentials of human play are present” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2006, p. 97). Therefore, when creating this art, I have used my primitive instincts to ‘play’ in a way that I feel is fitting in the context of the project, no rules, draw lines and doodle, add fun colours, play with filters and multipliers, etc.

Method

I began drawing in Affinity Photo, a program that is like the well-known Photoshop. I drew different patterns and ideas. I randomly made some abstracted creature - it is visible in some of the pieces I made but in others, I attempted to hide it. I began to play with mixing options and made some interesting ideas. I pushed this idea as far as I could and got some very interesting outcomes that made it in the top 16 of all the work I have showcased on the MAGI website. I have made 59 different drawings and iterations through the whole process. I will provide them in the file list if possible. While creating these different pieces, I used a bunch of different brushes and created things based on trial and error. While getting very creative and interesting ideas from the brushes themselves, I also wanted to push this as much as I could throughout the process.

Response

This week I created a response that was a bunch of abstract drawings. I began with looking up context and decided to draw something like one of them that I liked. To get a sense of what abstraction is, I started creating more interesting pieces and drawings. Through making these pieces, I began to see what else I could do with the pictures, so I opted to try different mixing modes and edited some previous drawings to create a whole new drawing with many different layers. When asking some friends for feedback, I got the response, ‘what is it?’. I was instantly happy with that reply as that is how I felt in class when the examples were shown. What is it? This is the reaction I am trying to receive from my work and thus I simply responded with thank you.

Reflection

Through exploring with different brushes, layer mixing, and having fun drawing, I have a better understanding of the software and what it can offer. I am happy with the results that I got with the project I made. I made a lot of iterations and drawings to ensure that I got as deep as I could for this project. I feel as now I am equipped with different thinking regarding making different works. I could use these patterns and artworks for textures or even create textures with the idea of abstraction in mind in the future.