I haven’t done any painting in a while, and frankly, I missed it a little.  So a couple weeks ago, when I visited NYC with Natalie, I saw a painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that I just fell in love with.

The painting looked like something along the lines of what you see here.  The artist made a repetitive design of lines that formed an imaginary object boundary where the lines change direction.  The effect is that you see a diamond, when there really is none.

Another thing I found neat was that the artist made no real attempt at making lines that were particularly straight or even parallel.  The overall design of the painting sort-of just comes out as an emergent property.

The painting I did behaves similarly, but is quite different in its own right.  I wish I knew the name of the artist who did the original, but I can’t seem to remember.  If anyone recognizes the style, please let me know.

I have plans for embarking on a second painting in the same style, with a much more complex subject matter.  Get ready!

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When I began this, my second painting, I was pretty upset about the way my last one turned out.  So for this one, I decided to just start putting paint on the canvas and seeing what I wanted to do with it.  Eventually I ended up making these two wave-like structures around a lime-shaped center area.

I then considered making a painting of a lime, but decided against it and kept on painting.  When I put the red in the center, it really started to come together.  I added some red to the corners as well, then came up with the idea of creating a stylized sun in the top corner.  That’s probably my favorite part.

See if you can guess why it’s called Woman!

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To quote my good friend Ariyan Basu, “Painting is neat.”

So I just flew in from my Portland, OR trip with a head full of ideas.  The next ten years seem just so promising and I have a newfound sense of freedom.

That being said, I’m staying with Ariyan in NJ for a couple days and then driving home and moving into the new place.  Yen is also here, visiting.

We were trying to think of something interesting/productive to do not, and we were at a loss.  Aside from watching another episode of  Drop Dead Diva, we decided it might be interesting to get some paints and check that shit out.

So we bought some real cheap combo-pack type stuff.  We then proceeded to eat a couple peaches, play two episodes of Planet Earth simultaneously on mute while listening to some traditional Persian/Indian music, and just start painting.

The result: pure genius.  We’ve all decided to drop out of school and become full-time painters.  Sure, the bohemian lifestyle has its pitfalls, but to quote my good friend Ariyan, “Painting’s neat!”