Easy Peasy, Create an Abstract Sketch
Gather your supplies
This is a good warm-up exercise if you’ve never painted, drawn, or created anything abstract. You don’t need any art supplies. a scrap piece of paper will work just fine. A pen, a pencil, anything you have in your junk drawer will work perfectly well.
STEP ONE
Find some inspiration photos. This is probably the easiest and funnest part. I suggest going to Pinterest, you can type in the search bar words like: botanical, movement, dancing, geometric composition, leaf close-up. funky composition, and rock formations, just to name a few. If you want some more ideas, take a look at my Pinterest board, solely dedicated to art composition inspiration. Save as many or as few photos as you like. See some of my inspiration photos below.
STEP TWO
This is where we take one of our inspiration photos and learn to see it abstractly. We use the photo as a way to pick out different shapes, lines, and patterns that we will eventually use to create our abstract sketch.
Let’s look at this photo “abstractly”
Look at all the organic shapes within the leaf pattern. The dark green parts and light pink organic shapes, the funky zigzag lines. The shape of the actual leaves. Take whatever photo you chose as your inspiration photo and “zoom in” on the shapes and patterns that exist within that photo. Don’t look at the picture as a whole. If it helps, turn the photo on its side, upside down, whichever way helps you see it abstractly.
Take your piece of paper and start sketching those shapes! I started with the shape of the main, front and center leaf. I decided to put the placement of the leaf in the center of my paper, as is the main leaf on the page. But don’t feel like you have to draw the placement exactly as you see it, put it on the side of your paper, or top, or bottom! Whatever calls to you.
The other place I am going to draw shape inspiration from is the inside of the leaf pattern. I outlined the pattern in red so you cam get a better idea of the pattern I am referring to. I then loosely sketched that shape at the top of my paper. I encourage you to find a shape, be it geometric or organic within your inspiration photo, and sketch it on a different area of the page.
STEP THREE
Third step is to find another inspiration photo. I encourage you to pick something opposite of the photo you were using. For example, if you were using an organic, plant photo like I was, choose something more geometric. As a quick reminder, organic means something you can find in nature, the shapes are not something you would be taught in geometry class, and there’s not an exact name for the shape. Geometric means there are hard lines, it’s a shape that you are familiar with such as a circle, rectangle, square, etc.
This is the photo I’m going to use as my next inspiration photo
Just as I did with the plant photo, we will look at this geometric photo for inspiration. We are going to layer on top of what we have already drawn.
STEP FOUR
Want to learn more about layering? Or what comes after creating a sketch? Would you like to learn how to create a full-on abstract painting, with paint? I’ll take you through step-by-step, in my abstract sketch and abstract painting videos here on Skillshare. Each video is self-guided, go at your own pace. Hope to see you there!
