Above is a new painting that I completed last weekend. I hang new works on my wall outside my home office where I can encounter them during the week, to see how much I like them. That’s how I decide if a painting is done or whether it needs more work. And I finally decided this one is complete, and that, for now, I like it a lot.

As you can see, it is composed of many layers. That is part of my creative process. I start with some tiny idea and then begin applying paint to see where it takes me. If I see something I like, I start to build on that and then branch out from there.

So this new painting, which I call Three Red Figures, emerged from that process. I started with a big canvas – in this case four feet by three feet – and laid on a base layer of white and some black.

Then I began to lay in some blocks of color. I usually work with primary colors. I want my paintings to be bright and bold and exciting, and primary colors do that.

Then I hung it outside my office for a while and decided it needed more. So I took it back downstairs and began to work on top of that, eventually hitting on the long horizontal strokes that became the real basis for the painting.

Then I added some yellow and red splashes. And then three central red figures. And finally some white wash over that, followed by some other washes of color.

For me, the beauty of it all – the fun of it – is NOT to have a real thought process behind it all. (Hence the “abstract” in abstract painting.) It is about letting go, and being free. It is about not having linear thoughts. As I’ve indicated, my real training and profession is as a journalist and writer. And all day, I am mostly consumed with putting one concrete idea in front of another, and applying those ideas to a different sort of canvas (a computer screen, mostly).

So what I like about painting is to abandon all of that linear thinking and just see what happens on the canvas. To open some tubes or cans of paint and just to start what I call “throwing paint” on a canvas. (This is not necessarily literally throwing, although sometimes that does happen.) And to see where the journey goes.

I just uploaded a painting I did last week.

As you can see, I am continuing to experiment with a particular style that uses very light strokes of many colors all over the painting. I work somewhat randomly until I see patterns emerge, and then I try to amplify those patterns. And in this case, I decided it needed more structure at the end, hence the six white lines.

For me, painting is all about experimentation and exploration. I haven’t really settled on a style yet. I am only guided by what I like.

Plus I have a whole basement full of experiments gone wrong. Stuff I don’t like. Maybe I’ll post a few of those at some point, just for fun. Which is what this whole thing is all about.

I also uploaded a couple of older ones today.

And also:

This last one is one of Ruwa’s favorites. It currently resides over he desk in her office. It is actually one of my earliest experiments in this particular all over style, which I don’t really have a name for yet. Well, Ruwa and I refer to it as the “cheh-cheh-cheh” style, kind of onomatopoeia for the sound it makes when I dab the paint on in fast, rapid strokes.

About the Artist