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“Chicken Scratch” 8×8, oil on canvas, $100.00 Buy Now

 

A painting a day? Want to know what I did today? I painted five paintings. On the same canvas. Nothing was working. And the more it didn’t work, the more anxious I got.

Finally, I grabbed a rooster off my shelf that’d I done months ago but pulled from my website because something about the background just wasn’t right. I’d already re-worked it a few times but figured yet another revisit couldn’t possibly harm it.

In the end I went for a classic D-hop (that’s what I call myself when I need some motivation) move– put words in the background. I used to do it on nearly all my paintings in college but have gotten away from it lately. Don’t even ask what it says. It’s mostly venting about my frustrating day in the studio. There are surprisingly no expletives though.

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Detail from the painting

All through school, teachers complained about my handwriting. The nicer ones called me to their desks to ask what a certain sentence or two that I’d written read. The not-so-nice ones would read answers out loud to the class, stumbling through mine and commenting about how they “could hardly read this one”.  So when my messy handwriting works well as a design element in a painting, I’m thrilled. Plus, it gave me the perfect title for this one.

In 100 days, there’s bound to be one like this. I just hope day 27 proves a bit more inspirational.