7 STEPS TO ABSTRACTION

Do you struggle to loosen up your drawing skills and create meaningful abstract paintings? CHRIS GILVAN-CARTWRIGHT reveals his seven practical steps to success

- CHRIS GILVAN-CARTWRIGHT

1 ESTABLISH AN ETHOS

When making abstract art, the most important thing to remember is that you can’t go “wrong”.

My students are often concerned that when they are drawing from the figure, the whole history of formal life drawing is weighing upon them and the right or wrong way to do this can haunt them. They will often have a fixed idea about what makes a good or bad drawing and arrived at a point where they feel their work has become too rigid. If this sounds like you and you also wish to loosen up, it’s important to establish the right mindset, one that takes the pressure off having to produce a perfect, exhibition-ready piece.

In order to do this, I like to give myself some tenets to work by – things I can bear in mind during the creative process, such as “concentration is essential”, “in order to draw you have to start from innocence”, or “if you know what you’re doing, you aren’t doing it properly”. You might want to write your own tenets out and pin them to your wall while you work.

2 REMEMBER TO PLAY

Being playful is the most radical thing you can do. I find that in order to successfully start making an abstract artwork, I have to be open to all the possibilities and directions in which the work could take me. In doing so, I am allowing the process of making work to govern the outcome, rather than being overly analytical and critical of what I am doing.