Ancient

This piece is a "redux" of an earlier painting called "Deceptively Simple" that I had created some years back, and I have always loved the simple layered look and color choices and the fact that it looks so old or ancient, akin to a feeling of unearthing a fossil or something of that nature, even though there are some brighter blues and greens than what is commonly found in nature.

I also like the "uneven-ness" of it, as though a portion of it was ripped or torn away from the rest (very organic looking). It was called "deceptively simple" because I really did do a lot of layering and waiting for layers to completely dry before continuing.

The original piece was done on a 16x20" (portrait layout canvas) and the redux is a 20x20" (square canvas layout). The latter piece also has more black showing through the beige area for a bit of extra interest. It also has a more exaggerated "organic" look to the "torn area"..

The process I used when creating this piece, was that I first covered the entire canvas with black paint. Then I let it dry, and I then used a "putty knife" to scrape various colors on top of the black canvas, while making sure to leave some areas with the black showing right through the top color (that's what I feel gives it the ancient look/feel). It's all very highly textured and I basically "scraped" the paint on top of the black and then did it over and over again, most notably with the pink square on top of the maroon area in the upper left area.

I am also very drawn to the abstract-ness of both pieces and hope you are too!