NEGATIVE PAINTING

INDONESIA BOROBUDUR TEMPLE

In general  the painter works with positive painting, which means adding a shape or color streaks one over the other.  Conversely negative painting originally came from painting techniques developed in watercolor, in watercolor technique the negative painting is made ​​using the white color of paper  which part is not painted or made blank space, in other words preserve the white of the paper in order to paint the negative shape of the object.

Negative painting technique is an  alternative way of painting the subject to form a negative space object resembling a painted white (white sculpted).

The positive and negative techniques can be combined to offer more choices and possibilities. Indeed, the positive and negative shapes can be used together to create depth and contour. This will improve the beauty look of the painting. The painting process is fun and simple:  leave blank space in the central motif to form a negative image and paint all around it to darken the surroundings.

The  negative painting in digital painting techniques  are very easy to do,  that is by first creating a black image or silhouette on top of a drawing or picture, and then change the color of the black silhouette into white, and do making perfection of  the image by adjusting the color gradient.

ABSTRACT ART PAINTING AND DRAWING

UNDERSTANDING ABSTRACT ART

Abstract art, otherwise known as Modern Art is a mystery for many people, including representational artists. The untrained eye might have trouble understanding and appreciating it as a serious art form.

An abstract art painting or drawing  is one without a preconceived idea or recognize-able subject, one which doesn't relate to anything external or try to "look like" something. Instead the colors and shapes are the subject of the abstract painting. It's a completely non-objective or non-representational.

Also classified with abstract art are figurative abstractions and paintings which represent things that are not visual, such as emotion, sound, or spiritual experience. Figurative abstractions are abstractions or simplifications of reality where the image still has representational foot, but detail is eliminated from recognizing-able objects leaving only the essence or some degree of recognize-able form  .

Abstract Art represents what is being felt on the inside rather than what is being seen on the outside. Abstract Art is more than just a randomized mess flung onto canvas. The creativity within these works of art is meant to turn heads and illicit new imaginations within the viewer. In most circumstances, Abstract Art is filled with exciting colors and textures. These elements are what make it one of the most favored forms of art collected today.  A strong piece of art is able to grab your attention and pull an emotional response from within you. This is the artist’s plan to keep your mind thinking, and analyzing and your eyes moving through the painting.

Abstract Art breaks away from the traditional representation of everyday objects and familiar subject. The viewer is not distracted by meaningful  images, so the mind is stirred into feeling the energy and soul of the painting. Abstract Art does not reflect any form of realism in fact, it breaks the rules. The only requirements for such paintings are shapes, colors, lines, patterns, and an unbounded imagination to view the finished work! As artists we all have the need to reach inside ourselves and rouse our inner feelings. Whether to tell a story, to capture an image, or to illustrate an idea it is a universal desire for both.

But if a piece of abstract art is supposed to have significant value to anyone other than the artist, it needs to have something that will retain the viewer's attention, draw them in, keep them looking, and generate an emotional response. In that sense, abstract art is no different from realism.

CREATING ABSTRACT ART

Begin traditionally by copying from life and gradually move into abstraction, try a copy of a photograph or a reproduction of someone else's art, then start to "abstract" or move away from reality, do not feel bound to represent it, only to use it as a starting-off point.

It's much easier to use something 'real' as the starting point for developing an abstract painting like photo and calligraphic marks, then play down the elements like cutting and dragging shapes, adding and subtracting shapes, swirling and expanding, etc. Which is a way or method to distort the images (in computer digital painting we can use available filter features of the graphic program) in order to get along with a completely non-objective or non-representational images, consider alternate colors, see the overall image or drawing to get a feeling of beauty. Then do it again, and again. That's how ideas for abstract paintings or drawings are developed.

If you are feeling a strong emotion of any kind, try expressing it directly through color, line and form on the canvas. But remember that whatever method you use to begin an abstract painting, you will need to pay attention to composition, interest in shapes and lines, dominance, and look at the overall image to get a beautiful feeling in order to complete it successfully. Or you can do like an  Abstract Expressionism  Artist, which emerged in the 1940s, applied the principles of Expressionism to abstract painting in which paint was dripped, dropped, smeared, spattered, or thrown on the canvas, letting the next action flow naturally rather than forcing a preconceived idea of what to paint is a good example of making expressionism  abstract painting.

This abstract image is created with  JacksonPollock.org free flash toy that simulates the “action painting” style of American abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock.

In general all painting is abstract in the sense that it is not the object itself. Many who call themselves "abstract artists" are Indeed painting a subject, but freely stylizing that subject to be a un-imagine-able or un-recognize-able object.  If you want to paint "abstract" but have trouble figuring out how to approach the canvas, try taking a subject you have painted before and abstracting it. If you are painting from life, for example, try squinting your eyes until all you can see are the blurry outlines of your subject.  Forget the details.  Take your brush or pencil and sketch in the broad shapes and contours.  Or take a very small section of your subject and stretched it up to cover the whole canvas. 

Now look from a distance and see how your composition unfolds, how the shapes take form and become interesting in and of themselves, without reference to your subject.  Keep playing with your composition, adding and subtracting shapes, modifying color, strengthening lines.  Follow your intuition to what draws you in, scrap what doesn't fit, and use your own imagination of free styling the subject.  Work fast, and then stop and study what you have.

In general developing an abstract art is no different from painting realism. The formal elements need to be there. Your personal signature needs to be there. Just as an author develops his own voice, so does a painter, so that the viewer or reader easily recognizes his style.

Abstract Art cover term that describes two different methods of abstraction: 'semi abstract' and 'pure abstract'. The word 'abstract' means to withdraw part of something in order to consider it separately. In Abstract art that 'something' is one or more of the visual elements of a subject: its line, shape, tone, pattern, texture, or form.

Semi-Abstract is where the image still has one foot in representational art. It uses a kind of free stylisation where the artist selects, develops and refines specific visual elements (e.g. line, color and shape) in order to create a poetic reconstruction or simplified essence of the original subject.

Pure Abstract is experimental art where the artist uses visual elements independently as the actual subject of the work itself in developing a non-objective or non-representational art.

Element  is part of  recognize-able strokes that form a subject or composition visually known as : its line, shape, tone, pattern, texture, or form.

The Art Of Drawing & Painting In Graphic

Portrait Drawing In Graphic

Every form of art has its own beauty. While carrying the special beauty, every art requires certain basic principles to be observed while doing the art work. So the art of graphic portrait drawing has also a set of fundamental principles like making the lines and shapes of an object and doing the light effect of the intensity of light falling on an object.

Art is like “love” hard to explain but you can feel it when it exists in an image or in other artistic objects. Drawing is defined as the art of representing objects or forms by lines, shading and other means, drawing image with computer graphic software program is the basis of making artistic expression and illustration in graphic.

Ability to draw something in graphic needed a graphic software program, someone first has to learn how to make drawing and illustration with computer graphic software program, it is a great pleasure to be able generating your hand drawing image or making derivative graphic figure from portrait, figure or landscape.

To start reproducing something in graphic whether it is a portrait, figure or landscape what you need is a set of computer with internet connection and a free source computer graphic software program like Inkscape, Paintnet, Irfanview, Photopospro ... etc. which can be easily downloaded from the internet.

Digital Painting

Digital painting is an emerging art form in which traditional painting techniques such as pen and ink, pencil, charcoal, pastel, watercolor, oils, etc.  are applied using digital tools by means of a computer, a mouse, a digitizing tablet and stylus, and graphic software program.

While traditional painting is painting with a physical medium as opposed to a more modern style like digital painting , where the artist uses painting techniques to create the digital painting directly on the computer. All digital painting software or programs try to mimic the use of physical media through various brushes and paint effects.  Included in many programs are brushes that are digitally styled to represent the traditional style like oils, acrylics, pastels, charcoal, pen and even media such as airbrushing. There are also certain effects unique to each type of digital paint which portraying the realistic effects of say watercolor on a digital 'watercolor' painting.  In most digital painting programs, the user can create their own brush style using a combination of texture and shape. This ability is very important in bridging the gap between traditional and digital painting.

Digital painting software such as Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Inkscape, GIMP, and Paintnet give artists a similar environment to a physical painter: a canvas, painting tools, mixing palettes, and a multitude of color options.

There are both benefits and drawbacks of digital painting. While digital painting allows the artist the ease of working in an organized, mess-free environment, some argue there will always be more control for an artist holding a physical brush in their hand. Some artists believe there is something missing from digital painting, such as the character that is unique to every physically made object, but on the other hand with digital painting artist can make, develop and change painting quicker than traditional one.

Graphic Art Printmaking
Printmaking is the branch of art work creation process using printing techniques, usually on paper, the process is able to create a copy of the same work in large quantities, this is called the printing process. Each copy of the work known as the 'impression'  painting or drawing, the good thing of graphic art print making is that each unique  print  being considered as an original work of art, since it is not a reproduction of another work of art . 
In a limited edition print usually the Artist signed and numbered each unique art print and the original  file source is destroyed to avoid further duplication. Prints are created from a single original surface, known technically as a matrix. Common types of matrices include: plates of metal, usually copper or zinc for engraving or etching; stone, used for lithography; blocks of wood for woodcuts, linoleum for linocuts and fabric plates for screen-printing. Works printed from a single plate create an edition, in modern times usually each signed and numbered to form a limited edition.

Digital Print

Digital printing refers to the image  created by a computer using graphic software program or from  pictures imported from other painting-drawing techniques such as  photos, light pen and tablet etc.  being  printed on a variety of materials including paper, fabric or canvas.

Digital printing can be printed on a standard desktop printer and then transferred to a traditional art paper. One way to transfer files is to put the print surface facing art paper and then pressed.

Inverted Calligraphy Image

In an abstract calligraphy the calligraphy marks is given as it is, not supposed to bear specific meaning or objective, the image beside is the result of graphic inverted colour manipulation

Abstract Calligraphy and Graffiti

Traditional Calligraphy
People say that Calligraphy is an art of scripting or writing script in a certain way as an effort to reveal the beauty of what is being written in the form of artistic letters.

As with Chinese or Arabic calligraphies as well, Traditional Western calligraphic scripting had  to follow very strict rules and accurate shapes. In term of quality the form of writing  artistic letter had its own up-down wide-thin rhythmic strokes and regular form to the letters, with a geometric order of the lines and shapes. Each character still has to be written in a precisely stroke order.

Abstract Calligraphy
By definition abstract is regarded as image which do not reflect visual reality, abstract calligraphy is a calligraphy artwork without strict or pricise character stroke order, a non objective calligraphy strokes or shapes. Abstract calligraphy existed in time as part of modern calligraphy which include variety ranges from functional hand-lettered scriptings and designs to kind of fine-art works where the abstract expression of the handwritten marks could be or couldn't be considered as having the format or legibility of the letters.

Generally in an abstract calligraphy the calligraphy marks is given as it is, not supposed to bear specific meaning or objective, the mixed or combination of the abstract marks strokes and shapes will make-up the so called abstract calligraphy, and if you could enjoy or feel a beauty in an abstract-calligraphy artwork then it is what art is all about.

Abstract calligraphy is an abstract drawing or abstract painting due to the drawing or painting is a non objective artwork, no intention of  drawing or painting an object beforehand, only the abstract drawing or painting is developed like the way a calligrapher does scripting.

Some simple steps in doing abstract calligraphy:

Step1. use graphic program to the make calligraphy strokes or splash of calligraphic marks

Step 2. Distort the image by selection of twisting, swirling, filling, polarizing, filtering or what ever distorting tools available in the graphic program

Step 3. See and feel the artistic result of the abstract calligraphy image after doing the distortion

Step 4. If you are satisfied with the results you are successful and completed, if you are not satisfied repeat step 2. till you are satisfied or completed

The following is a kind of abstract calligraphy image drawn with vector art graphic program.

Graffiti
Graffiti art is an image or scripting specific style letters painted or scratched on the wall or marked on a property piece. Usually graffiti painting existed in public property walls in the format like simple lettering  to express social and political messages or communicate controversy with a "tag" as an indicator, signature, name of the artist or gang related activity doing the graffiti artwork.

In Understanding Of Abstract Graffiti
Graffiti as an experimental art work can be expressed also on canvas or on another drawing or painting materials, abstract graffiti or experimental graffiti refer to the making of an abstract painting or drawing with the techniques used to make graffiti art work.

Abstract graffiti is an abstract painting where the abstract expression of the handwritten or graffiti marks maybe or maybe not have a meaning. For a simple understanding should you could enjoy your mood or feel emotionally attached to a beauty in an abstract graffiti artwork then an art is existed in it.

below is an example of abstract graffiti image done with vector graphic program