Architext
This painting is like a spontaneous road trip where you think you are going one place, but somewhere between home and where you planned to go you decide to take a detour and wind up somewhere totally unexpected with delightful results. If you've never done that, I strongly recommend trying it.

My original goal for this painting was something soft and organic, with roundish shapes gently back-lit by a greenish light. Once I started painting in the green patterns for the background, I found myself enjoying them so much that I knew I wanted to do something else instead. I added a splash of red to balance the composition and then stepped away from the painting for a bit to decide where I wanted to go next. This was what it looked like at that point;



I don't know why but the impression of tenement columns (or maybe it was fish bones or bridge supports) was the theme that kept popping into my skull, so I grabbed the knife and roughly placed the forms that were in my head onto the canvas. After that, I just added details and highlights with a liner brush. One of the greatest challenges I have is knowing when to quit, so once it became obvious that any further additions would only change the painting and not necessarily improve it, I decided to call it "done".



"Architext", 20 x 16 inches, acrylic on canvas
As for the name, well, don't even ask.