Floating

Sometimes a painting just arrives. In my head. At the strangest time. Even when I have other plans. One morning, as I was waking up, this was here. In my head. As plain as day. I knew exactly the shape she would be. And of course I didn't have any canvases that would do. Being resourceful, I recalled seeing a large moving box abandoned in the lobby. (Not to confuse you... the box was not actually "moving," it was intended for packing and moving.) You might recall my penchant for "found objects." Within minutes, the moving box had given up it's mundane career and was on its way to becoming ART. I don't usually paint on cardboard, but one must be resourceful. And the texture was perfect.

Back in art classes, every teacher impressed upon me the importance of layering the paint. Now, I always questioned the need for that. If you know what you want to paint, why not just get it right the first time? I learned a lot about layering in this piece. I painted what I thought I wanted. It was wrong. So I painted the next layer... also not quite right. It took several attempts to get all the parts right. And all the under layers were an integral part of the final effect. Call it what you will... Layering just means making a few mistakes so you can get it right on the top layer.

The casual observer might note that many of my mermaids have reddish hair. That's because my daughter Amanda is a mermaid, too.