Chase

40x30

Oil on canvas

Fire, Floods and Life

It seems appropriate for my first post to start with my first canvas.  I had just moved into a new house dubbed either the "happy meal" house, from the shape of the building, or the "mushroom" house, again from its shape but also from the mushroom boarder on the walls around the dining room kitchen area. My room like all the rooms were painted that stark renters white. A little side here, the previous year I lived in this house where I was allowed to paint the walls any color, so of course every room was a different color. So after living in such a colorful environment my new room felt like a sanatorium. I picked up a large canvas and some acrylic paints, tacked the canvas to the wall and started to experiment with the colors, shades, shadows, textures of this new to me medium. There wasn't some grand design to the piece at first, just trying to figure stuff out and live in color. I was still working on it when I moved again and then had to figure out how do I stretch canvas. At first I ignored the problem by rolling it out on the floor to paint it, but I eventually did get 1x1 at the home depot to build a frame.

I've always like how this piece ended out, a little big, but I like it. (give a hint on size, the door frame in the painting is the outline of my closet door from the mushroom house) It's rare for me to actually talk about some deep meaning in a painting. With that said, I'll simply say that the painting is found in the title, Fire Floods and Life, two forms of judgements and life being through a small plain door.