Off Track

The words read: I live 1,200 miles from the ocean. And yet here I am ... lost at sea.

I love this piece. The ambivalent ones are always my favorites. The pieces that capture the beautiful messy confusion of life. This piece is far more lovely in person. Unfortunately, my scanner is incapable of capturing the soft, subtle teals that fade to cool blues and then to rich purples. The colors mix smoothly in real life but appear a bit splotchy in the scans. I apologize for that. I know certain shades of teal and royal blue do not scan well, but I cannot bring myself to give up those colors just for the sake of marketing. So I hope you can imagine the real thing based on my description combined with the images I did managed to capture.

This piece has lovely poetic words painted in small black letters within the "x" that marks the spot where the home floats freely. Those words read, "I live 1,200 miles from the ocean. And yet here I am ... lost at sea."

I am hopeful this unusual piece will bring calm and comfort and peaceful acceptance to the home of some fellow drifter out there with a similarly buoyant soul.

How Off Track was created..... After the black gesso primer dried, I began this piece as a finger-painting. I applied paint directly from the tubes to the canvas and then used my hands to blend colors. I patted the surface - like playing a vertical drum - and my fingers pulled the paint into fabulous natural peaks and valleys. This method of painting is highly textured and this canvas begs to be touched. While the bold expressionist finger-painting was still wet, I used an ice scraper to remove the color and textures from an "x" shaped window. After that layer dried, I used a soft cotton cloth to rub on and rub through many many layers of transparent blues and greens. Then I used tiny detail brushes to paint the home, the words, the small "bubbles" that float through the scene, and the borders around the "x".

(The staple-free sides have been painted black. This is a digital photo. The scans above and below are more accurate.)

Off Track was painted on an 11" x 14" gallery wrapped canvas. The image continues around the staple-free sides allowing you to display this piece unframed if you like. It looks beautiful hung on the wall as it is or set on a small decorative easel. Or it can be easily and affordably framed as it requires no matting or glass.