Welcome! I’m very excited to be starting this blog and share my creative process. As an artist, I don’t like to stay in a comfortable place with my work. Before quarantine, I was starting to get bored with the process in which I made work. Once quarantine hit, I thought I would get so many great ideas and have a lot of projects I was excited about… The opposite happened. I had the desire to do nothing.
Now that the fire is back inside of me, I am ready to explore. I hope you enjoy and follow along with me as embark on this part of my artistic journey.
Music Credit: Elevator Beat By DJ Burn
Currently, I’m focusing on building an image with a focus on color and mark making. I find it much more exciting to piece together images to create something all my own. Something that as never really existed in the same time and space. I am also finding it much more exciting not to plan out the entire painting before starting. It allows me to be more experimental, and prevents my work from getting too precious. (A HUGE problem for me).
I really wanted to make a painting of some cattle with cattle egrets. There is something fun about two drastically different creatures, that hang out together. There is a herd of Wagyu cows that graze not far from my house. I’m not sure what it is about them, but I find them so inspiring. They may appear black, but they have such a rich color to them. I started with a focus on building the painting around these three cows with a cattle egret perched on the back of one. I decided to add a few more cows and birds to help with the composition. After roughly blocking a few cows and birds, I thought adding some interest to the background. Sure, they could be grazing in a large field, but I felt I needed something more. I came across some old sketches that my great aunt had drawn of some barns and sheds, what a gift. It was the perfect solution to my background.
This is just the beginning for this painting. I’m excited to see where it takes me.