2024 #30×30 Day 12 : Compulsive Nature

10×10″ Oil on Panel.

Untitled today! Because I’m not sure if I like this one.

But- the more I look at it, the more I like it. But my first reaction was that it didn’t turn out. Most likely thing is; I’m not responding to the colors. I do prefer green and grey :) I always love a green/grey painting.

When I was young, I painted everything in this blue/tan combination. Looking back at my work from undergrad (if it existed, because I’ve tossed the vast majority of it away) you would see painting after painting in this same color scheme. I didn’t know I was doing it at the time, but it was obvious looking back.

It comes from growing up in Edmonton, Alberta where the only color is blue sky. The land is just mud, slush and dead grass much of the time. Totally true; ask anyone who lived there. In my biased memory, green summer only lasts one week. Fall is a single day, and the trees are yellow in the morning and moldy brown leaves by 4pm. It’s also twilight until midnight in the summer, and it never gets to high sun in the winter. Dull, dull dull.

Now that we live in Montreal, we have a long chartreuse spring, a lush green summer filled with flowers, and a multi-colored fall that happens in three waves. Up north, in town, and then down south across the border.

In any case: I’m not the hugest fan of this one.

But I also know if I look at it in a year, I won’t know why I was complaining. The longer you wait, the better they look.

It’s already growing on me.