Sunset, bougainvillea and cat Painting

Part of my "Normal Heights" series. When you look at this painting, maybe it’s the sunset that you notice first, the brilliant yellow and orange sky, with the silhouettes of palm trees. Or maybe it’s the wall of bougainvillea. Or the cars, and old pick-up truck and a shiny new Tesla. Or the cat, chasing a butterfly. There’s something else about the painting, though, which you can’t see. I painted over part of it, it first looked very different. My original idea for this painting was to capture a very typical Normal Heights, scene: a guy, shirtless, doing his evening run around the neighbourhood, pushing a baby buggy, with a dog on a leash. Seriously, you see it all the time here. People pushing baby carts around while running through the neighbourhood with dogs. It’s a thing. I had the painting completely done, but I was very unhappy with it. First, I couldn’t figure out why. Then I realised that the runner wasn’t really painted in my style. Also, usually my paintings leave a bit of space for you to imagine a story, but this one didn’t give you that space. It was too full. The rest of the scene I really liked, though. I didn’t want to abandon the painting. So I decided I would just paint over the runner and do something else. I really can’t tell you how I came up with the cat chasing the butterfly. I guess I just like cats, and I know how excited they get chasing after insects! Like the cat that chased the butterfly around the streets of Normal Heights, this painting ended up in quite a different place from where it started!