Starfish

Starfish
8" x 10" oil on canvas board

Here is yesterday's painting. I was debating on letting it dry and then adding some dark washes, but right now I am leaning toward leaving it alone.

This is how ideas work:

I stayed up half the night many moons ago daydreaming about a big fat goldfish floating in front of purple striped wallpaper. But I was having trouble giving the image in my head a pleasing composition, so it sat and stewed for a bit.

Then I tried to figure out how to make the fish in a 3-dimensional form, started doodling on it in the sketches and came up with this star-sided fish. I started a felt fish sculpture in gray. I knew I wanted to eventually do this fish in color because the body wanted to be red with a yellow star and black and white fins and tail.

I initially did not know what color to make the face, but daydreaming about my new blue decided it for me.

The wall paper was bland, so I drew some circles in there which turned into bubbles. And the baseboard looked bland, so I swirled it up with the wrong end of my paintbrush.
I wanted the fish to be grounded, so I put some quasi-newspapers down so he would not pee on the carpet.

What can I say? It was fun. I was glad the fish was already sketched out because I really wanted to paint something and was not quite feeling up to slapping something down and hoping it would come out ok.

I wonder if I am leaning more and more toward extreme color saturation because the world outside is so very white and gray... I guess we shall see come springtime with its explosions of color in flowers, grass, leaves on shrubs and trees, and all the college kids sporting new spring fashions.