Today I woke up and realized that I had not been in my studio (outside of cleaning it after the crazy holiday season/hurricane Andrea) since before the new year. Creating things on a computer is wonderful, but sometimes you just want to get your hands [and in my case, every piece of comfortable clothing, face, arms, and feet] dirty.

2017 has had some crazy energies going on, across the board; getting a breath of fresh air with a brand new concept/painting seemed like the right direction for today. I wanted to try something completely new, nothing like anything I had created before. I often get into "style modes" and need breaks with new textures, fresh color palettes, and random ideas. This new painting is a perfect balance of all those things.

I chose to go with white, gray, black, tan, aqua, and "venetian rose." I was just going to say salmon, but Venetian Rose sounds CLASSY AS SH*T. As soon as I knew my color scheme, I knew exactly what I wanted in the center of the canvas. I wasn't really clear on what I wanted around it, but I knew that single, BAD*SS brushstroke of black was going to be the money sauce of this piece.

Materials

18 in x 24 in stretched canvas
Acrylic Paint [white, gray, black, tan, aqua, & Venetian Rose]
1 Large Paint Brush
Butter knife
Sponges
Water

I have fallen in love with mixing neutral colors with minimal color. Inspiration always sparks in the strangest places for artists - point in case: I saw a row of wax scents at a store, randomly placed and in the usual complete disarray, with these similar colors near each other. The urge to want to use those colors is similar to having an itch on your palm. The only way to get rid of the itch is to let it out. PAINT.

My favorite part of being an artist is color. Every color is so unique and endless, it creates a wonderful feeling of freedom and possibility. The tan and grey are an awkward but beautiful couple on this canvas. Instead of the colors blending with one another, they remain separate and unique - they simply share the same space.

Not only do I tamper with color, but also texture. I mix different types of paints (liquid/semi-solid) with different temperatures of water to creature different "slips" with the paint, for lack of better term [slip is the watery, muddy substance people use when creating pottery pieces]. By using different textures of paint and learning, over beautiful (and sometimes horrendous) trial and errors, I get to create these wonderful things.

Process

With this painting, I started in the center and worked my way out - using various styles that I have used in the past, and some brand new ones. As much as I wanted to take that Venetian Rose, dominate the entire canvas and roll my entire body around on it, I contained my excitement and love for the color and made it the show of the entire canvas. It's incredible how so much can be going on but you still see that color the most, simply because I used it the least. Incredible concept, right?

I used my current signature style of "Watercolor Acrylics" on the left side of the painting, but kept it very limited. I did not want any amount of complexity to over throw the boldness of the center. I applied the gray and tan with a butter knife across all four corners, keeping the same general direction outside of the bottom left corner.

I felt as though the white canvas that was still exposed needed to have more depth and richness, but no color. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing when I did it, but I just went with it. I took my extremely slippery white paint and created drops across the entire thing (see above). I then let them set up about 50% over a 20 minute period, only to come back and use a paper towel to dabble the loose paint out, while leaving a white, dimensional ring. I'm telling you, this sh*t is pure science and I don't even know where it comes from. Artists are insane.

I then had to walk away for a bit because I felt as though it was missing something, but I just didn't know what. I met up with my "Supervisors," and realized that they needed a bathroom break from all their strenuous work, so continued outside with them to let them do their business.

Meet the "Supervisors" - Duke & Bear #DogTax

Once we all stretched out legs for a few minutes and got some fresh air, we headed back in. The boys got back to their posts - no one gets fed for free in this house!!

When looking at the canvas again, I knew it needed more black. Not a brush stoke of black, a new medium of black, LIQUID. BLACK. That's right ya'll. We're getting dangerous over here. Have you ever worked on a project for so long and then you have it all ready in your email to send to your boss and your palms are sweaty, and you're overthinking everything in your life to make sure you're actually ready to push the send button: that was me while holding a huge squirt bottle of liquid, black beauty in my hand. I was either going to make this painting, or completely sh*t all over it. My palms were literally sweating.

Luckily, I took a few deep breaths and achieved my goal without turning the entire canvas into a black swamp. It's these moments when I love being an artist the most. It seems so insignificant, but coming in towards the end of a piece you actually love and deciding to throw huge, black, liquid lines across it literally creates an adrenaline rush. I made it to the finish line. No black swamp today!

Although I dodged that mistake, that doesn't mean I was so successful in the next stages of completing this painting. I decided I wanted to try and give those majestic, liquid stripes some depth, and added drops of the Venetian Rose to set up over time. When doing this, a small droplet of Venetian Rose escaped and landed directly to the right of the majestic stripes. More often than not, paintings turn out to be half of what we thought we wanted, and half of what we ended up with trying to cover up "mistakes." I fell in love with the single drop, and immediately decided it was meant to go there. It's probably my favorite part of the entire piece.

That's right, ya'll. I spent hours working on painting, using my brain and creativity to do so, and my favorite part of all of it wasn't even on purpose. This is what it's like being an artist.

And, the grand finale. I honestly love it hanging both ways, but what do YOU think? I have so many people ask me questions about my process, how I do things, and where inspiration comes from; so, I thought writing a blog with lots of pictures would be the most effective way to answer them all. Thanks for reading through my crazy creative thoughts!