Northern Chickadee Painting

I paint because I need to. It’s a form of meditation or therapy for me. Maybe it’s about control. My paintings, like life at times start out as uncontrollable. The materials I use are flow mediums, oil based metallics, alcohol inks, acrylic inks and acrylics. I start my painting by pouring clear flow medium over the entire surface, then I add different paints and inks to the wet surface allowing and encourage the colors and different materials to mix and mingle. Painting with various mediums on top of a wet surface does not lend itself to much control. With time, I then begin to shape and direct the chaos making some order out of the disorder, organizing the paint into an abstract painting that I am please with. I live with that abstract painting for a time until it speaks to me and tells me what it wants to become. I then paint the negative space and like a sculptor I carve out scenes with subjects such as animals, trees, buildings and people. This process is a further expression of organizing the chaos within the painting by taking the abstract and forming it into a recognizable subject. It is exciting to see within each person, animal or object many interesting surprises created by the lines, splashes and dots full of color that were once only naturally flowing paint. There are hints of personalities, faces and unique energy within each of the subjects. I hope my art will bring the viewer joy and contentment like it has for me.