Day 17 of the 28 in 28 - Ballooning for Fish

What does it mean to balloon for fish?  I'm not sure, entirely.  I do know that fishing is a sacred art and to some, it is almost a religion... Look up quotes about fishing, and you find things like "It's better to sit in a boat and think about God, than sit in a church and think about fishing." I won't promise you that this painting is as deep as all that, but it could be. All depends on how you are seeing it at this moment. I know I will get some folks who feel sorry for this very worried looking fish (reminds me of C-3PO a little..)  Don't worry.  No fish were harmed during the making of this painting.. <3 :)

And if you read my facebook post, you will remember that I was wondering also about why balloons are the things that help to make special occasions even more special.. what is it about balloons? My paintings aren't necessarily about answering these questions.. they are more just visual places to sit and ponder for awhile.. hopefully in a smiley kind of way..

"Ballooning for Fish", oil on panel, 9"x12"
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Day 9 of the 28 in 28 - Dreaming of Tea

 This here is another painting that is a bit outside of the box for me. It started out as an old painting that was just meh and had been sitting in my painting archives for a few years.  I recently did a purge of this archive - made some tactical decisions of what to keep, what to chuck and what to paint over - and thought this one would be a good one to paint over.  The bones were good (meaning the substrate) and the colors in the original painting could look cool poking through a new painting.  I designed the new image and dove in...

The image of an elephant dangling on the end of a red balloon spawns from the Red Balloon series I've been exploring.. I thought it would be interesting to suspend an elephant from a balloon to see what that would do visually.  I do really like tea and tea cups (ask my family.. I have a cup problem..) and also enjoy playing with scale. Suspend an elephant from a balloon over a cup of tea and add a lot of interesting palette knife texture to the background and it turns out you get... Enlightenment!

Well, maybe.  Enlightenment is trickier than that... However, I can say that I am pretty excited with the results.  I love the texture and as I said, the layers that poke through and the imagery is sufficiently compelling to keep me pondering and continues to pull my attention to observe. And, doing a bit of research into the symbolism of Tea, elephants and balloons, gelling it all together, it turns out that this painting could very well be about a powerful spiritual experience of wisdom, strength and a little bit of luck.  I'll take it. But you don't have to.  It may just be an elephant floating above a teacup.. Regardless, you will want to scroll down do check out all of the juicy, yummy texture and color..

Dreaming of Tea, Oil on panel, 16x20"
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