When you watch Jackson Pollock painting, you see that as often as not he dribbles the paint from the end of an overloaded brush or stick. Occasionally he will flick the paint onto the canvas. Occasionally he will pour from a can. But he doesn't often flick, ot pour. Mostly he dribbles.
This is the systematic effect I have tried to achieve here.
This is an exercise that I had set myself in the essay "Geometric Abstraction: From Mondrian to Pollock by way of Matisse".
This is only an initial attempt. Its a single layer. Pollock used many layers.
I'm not exactly sure what I should have done at the edges. My initial inclination was to let the dribbles continue over the edge, as I have done here. But the edges of an actual Pollock are different. I guess he was inclined to dribble more towards the centre of the canvas, thus the edges were relatively neglected. I'll need to redo this image, keeping more towards the centre.
 |
| simplified detail |
Why do I say this is geometric? From the detail you can see that in fact in this case I have repeated identical drippings randomly over the canvas. So the layout of the components can be described by a simple equation. Another equation for the drippings would suffice to describe the entire image. With only a modest compromise on the randomness this pattern could be used to make wallpaper. Imagine that. Pollock all over your walls.