Then and now.

Silent Tiny Pieces of the Sun
April 2009
Acrylics, ink, and watercolor on canvas panel. 24" x 18"

I finished this one over the weekend and I'm very proud of it. Many failed things all came together in a way that I never expected. It's further testament to my newfound conviction that any painting can be saved if you just keep at it.

It just so happens that I recently found the last landscape I did, and I'd like to present it in the spirit of comparing and contrasting:


Ice Cream Mountains
Spring 1998
Acrylics on canvas panel. 24" x 18"

The differences in paintings directly mirror the differences in me that have happened over the past eleven years. When I was finishing up high school in 1998, I was like the older painting. More certain about colors, a little glib, not all that interesting or varied. Like the newer one, I am now more subtle, interesting, complicated, and patient. The colors in my life became far more varied and uncertain, but make up a distinctly vibrant palette.

The brilliant stroke is that the painting I just finished was reclaiming a canvas panel from another failed painting of the spring of 1998. It sort of feels like I'm coming full circle in painting.