Lavender Crush

The truth behind this painting is that I started it late on the second afternoon of the Gene Rantz Memorial Paintout, sponsored by the Northport Arts Association--and just as I started blocking in the composition, the heavens cut loose and I was caught in a deluge of rain. Since I work with Cobra water-miscible oils, that's never a good thing. Fortunately, I had been thinking ahead, and so had brought along my mini-tripod that I use to set up my M-Box palette box at home on a drafting table; I also had thought pragmatically to park my Honda CR-V southwest against the potential rain that was forecast. I quickly tucked the panel into the safety of my CR-V's hatch, set up the mini-tripod and M-Box, and continued painting as raindrops beat against the top of my car and water dripped off the open hatch door around me. Problem: I no longer had a visual of what I had intended to paint, and only a preliminary sketch with which to work. The resulting painting thus became incredibly abstract and built on shapes, eye-flow, and warm colors that admittedly weren't part of the landscape. I have no firm idea how or why this painting emerged as it did, but it was a boatload of fun (actually, a true boat would have been handy, given the downpour) to paint and I was delighted by how unusual was the painting that emerged.