I just finished this painting a month or two ago, but I didn't get around to photo-documenting it decently until last night.
The painting was partly inspired by a dream I had that I ran and ran all the way to the ocean, and when I got to the beach I kept running, meaning to wade my way into the waves, but as I placed my foot on the water it turned into ice, and just kept running and jumping from ice sheet to ice sheet, and three rams with large curled horns leaped ahead of me from iceberg to iceberg and I followed them. I originally planned on painting the rams themselves as well, climbing along and leaping from the icebergs. I tried painting them in several times, but it never felt quite right, so I decided to exclude them.
The painting is called "Dreaming of Boudin's Skies" because I was going through a Boudin phase, and I tried to emulated his beautiful skies in my painting. I really respect Boudin because my main focus in painting is just creating something beautiful or emotional, and I really admire his dedication to painting the same beautiful subject in a simple and unpretentious manner for the sheer beauty and pleasure of it.
The composition was very experimental to me. I recently attended art school for two semesters (I hated it), and my drawing teacher often reproached students for putting the subject right in the center. It was a sort of "rule" there, so I decided my first work outside of art school would intentionally violate it. I was trying to see if I could create a successfully balanced and interesting work with a very simple, straight-forward, dead-center composition. I also experimented with different mediums. I used a lot of pouring medium for the clouds. I don't think there's any way for me to show this in a photograph, but the clouds were dripped onto the canvas. I mixed paint with a lot of pouring medium, and dripped/poured the paint on the canvas. Then I blended the edges to they look cloud like. If you see it real life, the drips are three-dimensional.
When I first finished it, I was very unhappy with it and didn't feel it was finished, but had nothing to add. As I've grown some distance from it over the past month or so, it's grown on me and I think I'm ultimately satisfied with it.
I don't have any questions or requests for particular feedback on it, I just wanted to show it to someone! I haven't entered it in any shows yet or had anyone look at it, and I've been dying for someone besides me to see it!
