Ways into abstract painting - day 3

We'd left our work "in the colour palettes of the masters" on the walls - cheerful, isn't it? The calm brown tones at top left were from a painting of someone playing the cello in a pool of light; next to it is a Morandi painting. At bottom right, the bright colours of Dan Perfect, and the more muted ones of John Piper.

And this is what I did with the Picasso postcard - looks like redhot lightning has just hit and exploded a football (soccer ball)!

Working from the imagination hasn't been my strong point. I need a reference of some sort - if not an object, then a word. And for "abstraction", a word or mood or something intangible might be what's needed.

Today, we started out by talking about artists who use system and process, and then were introduced to "the rules" for our own system. Spinning the bottle determines the colour to use; one of the shuffled cards determines where on the paper to paint; and a throw of the dice relates to the list on the wall, with options such as "small brush, dots" and "cloth, wipe" and "large brush, drip or splatter".

Thus we set to work, adding event after event to our "performance" of painting.

I got several "centre" cards but not an "all over" card, but some people got several "all overs" -

Of course it's all too easy to prefer what other people have done. And seeing what they've done can give you ideas....

In the afternoon we painted to music, which turned out to be Miles Davis's Spanish Sketches, Elgar's Cello Concerto, and a couple of Jimmy Cliff numbers. At first I hated this exercise, and it shows -

though by the third one, the danceable stuff, I was oh-so-ready to try something different. Again, what other people were doing was an inspiration -

Finally for the day, a chance to take one of our "music" pictures further. I was in a great hurry to paint All Over the Miles Davis one - first a layer of white put on with a palette knife -

Then choosing a range of colours, and using lots more white -

It's moved a long way from the music ... now it looks rather like a bit of dyed cloth!

Palette knives were in short supply - I'll be bringing my own from now on.