This painting titled: Taupe Blue Variations, a recent acrylic work on paper is 9x12”. I’ve come to realize that when working away from the studio this is an approach to painting I revisit. A technique called Automatic Drawing which was devised by members of the Surrealists Movement. I’ve used the technique long before knowing of it’s existence. As an early teenager and onward through life I’ve scribbled and developed ideas that materialized on the paper. While the Surrealists encouraged more representational ideas, for me, more often it would remain abstract. This text from Wiki is more in keeping with my application of the process… (In the 1940s and 1950s the French-Canadian group called Les Automatistes pursued creative work (chiefly painting) based on surrealist principles. They abandoned any trace of representation in their use of automatic drawing. This is perhaps a more pure form of automatic drawing since it can be almost entirely involuntary – to develop a representational form requires the conscious mind to take over the process of drawing…)
So as Automatic Drawing has played an integral part of my process, I feel this technique could be useful to any creative person who may feel blocked. The physical act of moving the pencil or paint around, staying open to possibilities may open the door to something you were not considering. Often taking that first step seems monumental but literally putting pencil to paper can break the chains.
