Robert Leedy Watercolors

The World According to Me

1. Mari 8.29.07 / 7pm

   I like the way this is looking already, Robert, and very much enjoyed reading about and am intrigued by your method of working here. How did you come to this process?

   Reply
2. Robert Leedy 8.29.07 / 8pm

   Hi Mari,
   The starting point in abstraction I referred to above can begin in an unlimited number of ways. Above, I distorted an image and then manipulated it into something entirely different from the original source. Sometimes abstraction is not so divorced from its original subject: look at abstraction throughout the history of art in the early 20th Century, namely Cubism, where subjects are deconstructed and simplified; from there, movements came along with many embracing the ideas of abstraction that continue in art today.

   Picasso was a master at abstraction and it pops up throughout his career. But one of the more simpler examples of this is his sculpture of a bull whereby he placed the curved handlebars of a racing bicycle over the top of the bicycle’s thin, leather seat. This is pure, abstract thinking from a genius!

   I always appreciated the work of Piet Mondrian but it wasn’t until I saw a retrospective of his work in Paris that I really understood his journey. The curator of this show did an incredible job of transitioning the early, realistic works into his later, well-known abstract geometric paintings. I, personally, loved the transitional periods where abstraction was seeping into realism. Incredible paintings!

   I remember a project I was assigned in school: The professor was Mary Hammond, a very talented photographer, who happened to be teaching a design course I was taking. She had us draw close up contour drawings of the mechanical parts of bicycles; once completed, we would blow up the image and zoom in on an interesting area. From there, we would determine elevations and create a sort of relief map from which we would build a separate construction based out of raised cardboard shapes. From these rough designs, we made molds and poured latex to create abstract bas relief pieces. The whole process was really cool and it was a wonderful lesson on abstraction.

   But as I said earlier, there are unlimited avenues for abstraction. I mentioned in the post above that random abstract painting was diffcult for me; I must say that often I have started paintings with painted words or other, somewhat realistic images and carried them into abstraction. Maybe this is a factor of energy. In these cases, it is as a mantra or spiritual energy that gets me there – or gets me going. I am by no means, a religious or New Age disciple but I can and do incorporate spiritual energy into my work.

   Mari, I hope your computer screen goes this far down to read the response! Thanks for commenting and let me know if there is a Proust connection in here…

   Maybe I should have just made a separate post!

   Robert

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3. paintingartist 9.12.07 / 6pm

   Interesting process.

   I have two sort of abstract paintings that I did while painting plein air. Go figure. I was just happy to be out in the fresh spring air on one of the first warm days of the year and didn’t really care what I painted.
   They turned out pretty good.

   I say sort of because one of my art friends berates me if I ever call something abstract that has anything recognizable in it!:)

   Can’t wait to see the paintings you have in progress. I remember when I painted in watercolor what you are going through as one misstep and Oooooboy!!!!

   Reply
4. kasandra 9.22.07 / 2pm

   No puedo entender el proceso Robert pero sí que cuando vengo a ver tus cuadros siento algo.
   Besos de las criaturas imaginarias 🙂

   Reply
5. Robert Leedy 9.30.07 / 4pm

   Estimadas criaturas,
   Me alegra que mis pinturas signifiquen algo para ustedes. ¡Es una recompensa importante para mí !

   Abrazos, Roberto

   Reply

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