In the style of Rothko

Best evening class yet- a lesson in use of colour and easy abstraction , sort of Rothko-esque meets MondrianWe started off with a sheet of newspaper (Evening Standard in this case) and then placed a piece of tracing paper over it and drew round some of the blocks of text, banners or pictures. Not the same bit of newspaper shown here but you get the picture. Then we transferred the traced image onto watercolour paper by scribbling with pencil on the back of the shapes of the tracing paper and then tracing over the shapes again from the front - I can't think how many years it it since I did that!
Meanwhile using acrylics in primary colours we painted over the newspaper page itself. I rather like how the text and ghosts of images show through the paint ( some people who had the sudoko or crossword pages had some interesting results) Then picking out the areas liked/disliked and using in my case a more restricted colour palette, painted on the watercolour paper with the transfered shapes, thinking about layers and quality of paint and brushstrokes The results were so varied - some people had picked out tiny little squares (and were then cursing at the amount of tracing involved!) , some had concentrated on large blocks but all were based on the newspaper layouts . It was a great way to produce abstraction fairly painlessly and in a restricted time frame . Worth further exploration.
We have a break next week as our tutor has been nominated for a teaching award but then we have 2 weeks to work on our own project - what to choose?!!