Messiah

48" x 36" acrylic

After discovering and pulling out the bear character in my "Mishap at Mugu’s Lab" painting, I knew that I would want to utilize the bear in other pieces.  Messiah is the first attempt of this.  Before I knew where this canvas was (headed), I began by "throwing" colors down on canvas in a spontaneous and organic fashion with what felt like a pleasing composition of color (fig.1).  Then to force a focal point and play with basic color and shape, I added a large yellow circle (fig 2).  I accentuated the circle and added an organic border to about half of the canvas using thick black lines.  I left myself rounded and sharp windows to the previous layers (fig 3).  These windows are deliberate opportunities that I left for myself to later balance with pockets of a solid color.  Transitioning into 2018, I felt was a good time to take a leap and drop the bear onto one of my most promising works at the time.  I created a stencil from my previous creation, "Mishap at Mugu’s Lab," and painted the bear in solid white, leaving similar opportunities for color in the bear's teeth (fig 4).  To give the work a bit more balance in composition and color, I added an orange circle centered in a purple circle with thick black lines.  The teeth of the bear were used to playfully layout highlights in this painting's color pallet (fig 5). And a weird teal shape appears towards the top-right just because (fig 6).