A few of my fellow artists and I took a workshop from Ed Labadie in which we worked from "chaos to order"---spraying our paper and dropping in acrylic colors, and letting things run together. Then we stand back and evaluate. We might decide to keep things abstract, or (in my case) add some subject matter (fish) to the whole thing. Here's an image of what my painting first looked like, and where I'm at right now....this thing is still in progress, mind you.

I'm taking part in the Art Challenge at the Village Gallery of Arts in Portland, Oregon. We have one month to create four works of art --little 6x6 inch canvases that will hang vertically. So the trick is to make them related (theme or color-wise) but individual enough to stand on their own. A tall order for a short painting!

Last year, I was working on my bird canvases for Art Challenge up until the week before the deadline; but this year, thanks to the fact that we got our canvases a week earlier than usual, I managed to get these things done over the course of 2 days. The idea came to me as I looked a box of collage papers I've made over the years (using acrylics and texture making tools to scrape through the paint and make patterns).

Here are the four completed paintings---to see them in person, come to the gallery between 10am and 4pm during the day long reception on Saturday May 5. These works (and many many other 6x6 paintings by other artists) will be on display and for sale during the month long show.

After years of resisting, I think it's high time I started blogging about art-related topics like many of the rest of my fellow artists seem to be doing. In this space, I will be writing about paintings in progress (watercolor, acrylic and acrylic marbling) and share some insights that I hope will enlighten artists and anyone who is interested in the act of art-making.