Did my dog’s fur secretly inspire me?

Did my dog’s fur secretly inspire me?

I’ve been painting the same thing over and over recently. Powder watercolor abstracts, the ones that have a nebula or galaxy vibe. I couldn’t stop, I was having so much fun making them.

I also discovered that I could add another layer on top of the first layer. I went back to five old paintings and added to them. They’re so much more interesting now. More complex. More intentional. Like they finally became what they were trying to be.

Some of the paintings still felt like they needed something, thought, I just couldn’t figure out what. My instinct was to paint something on top, the way I did with my scorched tree paintings. But they were already complex and that kind of detail would make the paintings way too busy.

Then I spent a Sunday at Mirada Art Gallery and my friend Sherri reminded me there’s more than one way to add to a painting. She pointed out the blue abstract at the gallery that I’d layered orange circles onto. That was exactly what I needed.

So yesterday, I opened Procreate and kept going. Just to see how some of them would look if I added circles to those too. And they got even better!

Here’s the part that surprised me though.

After two days and probably six hours of painting these, they had consumed my brain and I just kept thinking about them. I looked at my dog and I saw the paintings in her fur. Dark on top of light. Light on top of dark. Colors that flow into each other the way fur does. I looked at a piece of wood on my desk and saw it there too. The burls, the layers, the way nature just builds on itself and flows organically.

I don’t think I was painting abstracts. I think I was painting something organic, I was painting nature all along and just didn’t know it yet.

Here’s one of the Procreate mock ups.

What do you think, do you like it?