Betsy In The Sky With Diamonds
18” x 24” oil and spray paint on wood, 2023.
This one is a bit outside of my norm and it started in a strange way. I happened upon an ornate stencil at Michael’s that I thought was cool so I bought it. It sat around long enough to be forgotten until I rediscovered the stencil earlier this year. With no idea how I should use it, I spay painted the pattern six times on wood using bright pink. The panel then sat for a while until I randomly decided a cow needed to be painted on it. I have no idea how this decision came about or why I chose it.
I made the cow using thickly applied paint with loose brush strokes. I then basically played around with some fairly bright colors on the background until I decided that I liked it. That took a bit. After my first few sessions with the background, I kind of wanted to burn it because the results were not good.
The entire process was far from how I normally plan and execute a painting, but I think it worked well.