2024 - Jan - Abstract Art
Do you believe it’s 2024 already! It seems like we just started the holidays and now it’s over. Where did the time go? I know it goes fast when you’re working as much as I am these days. It seems like it’s the start of the week and then it’s over. My weeks seems to run into each other.
I missed another week of my writing. I don’t like it but what can I do. I’ve been busy doing my artwork and involved in other life matters.
I’m starting a new monthly post detailing my artwork.
What I plan to do is post my paintings from the month before. This month, you get to take advantage of two months worth of paintings. This is what I accomplished in November and December 2023. All of these paintings are 11 x 14 inches.
I’ve already completed one gigantic painting for January but you’ll have to wait until February for that one.
Let’s get started.
November 2023
This area of Cackle Street in Rye is home to a few businesses. Most of what you see are the houses, businesses, cars, and yards. There are a few car repair and maintenance service businesses. Talk about uniqueness. Wait until you hear what you can enjoy! There is a place where you can go glamping. It is secluded glamping in the heart of the East Sussex countryside. Stay in a Yurt. It's a great place to relax and explore the area. This project took 8 hours over 2 days.
December 2023
This painting is of a train trestle in Melbourne, Florida. I’ve driven under this particular one a few times. It’s been years since I’ve gone by there. They just re-did the train trestle to accommodate a high-speed rail train. This train will make stops in Orlando and south Florida. At this time, there is no timetable on when our area will get a stop. There is talk that they might add one in Cocoa. At one time, there was a stop there for some kind of train but that was way before our time.
This is a painting of the El Hank Lighthouse. I picked this scene due to at least one of my subscribers being from Morocco. I thought it would be cool to select places where my subscribers lived. This was my most elaborate abstract work until my most recent one.
If you read the story titled, “The Leaf”, you saw the photo I used for my inspiration for this painting. If you look closely, you might even see a face in the leaf. It’s funny how that stuff happens.
Conclusion
I hope you liked the artwork. I have fun painting each and every one. My goal is to sell them once I get my website store up and running. I’ll be writing about it soon.
Each painting is labor intensive. It takes hours and hours to work on each project. My initial outline ends up turning into more as I go along the journey.
My signature is the outlining I use on each painting. It makes the painting pop to life once it is completed. My most recent painting took me one and half hours of non-stop work to complete just the outlining. You’ll see that next month. There are a lot of nooks and crannies to navigate as I go through each painting. There are a lot of intricate details.
I take my inspiration from photos. The photo may be photos that I have taken or from Google Maps.
That’s it for now. I’ll see you next week for more writing, hopefully!
Until next time, happy reading!
-Matt
If you know someone who likes art, share this post with them. I keep finding other artists to subscribe to on Substack. They seem to keep popping up.
Matt, these are great! The lighthouse and the leaf are my favourite. I've just checked out your 'Leaf' post, having inexplicably missed it when you'd first published it - and gosh, your artwork is a beautiful take on the photograph.
Art using maps, too, is such a lovely idea.
Very interesting and good work Matthew. I never thought of creating abstract art from land mapping. And I have to agree that doing artwork just like writing can be time consuming. What kind of medium do you use?