This one started in an abstract figure class I was taking at Fleisher, with Martin Campos as my teacher and my friend Susan as the model. My favorite teacher *and* my favorite model! It was a series of paint in thirty seconds, change pose, rub out, repeat. I primarily use oils nowadays, but I love the way acrylics smear!

You see things in the dark, and I like the way things come out from the dark void, a la David Lynch. The man in the distance started as a series of waterfalls. That's all I wanted - waterfalls in a cave - and it ends up looking like a karateka performing an uchi uke. That's an inside block, or outside block depending on the type of karate you train. But it can also be that the man is making a sacred vow to the woman, and we the viewers are peeping on a private, intimate moment.

To the woman's left is her companion dog, and by her feet lies a little piggy. I have a bird named Timmy, and Timmy likes to jump down on the floor and announce, "Gonna getcher piggies! Gonna getcher piggies!" And then he gets your piggies. So it was a fun coincidence that there was a little piggy by her feet! All I had to do was bring him out.

I liked where the painting was going, but I started feeling like leaves in the foreground were a cliché (they totally are). So how do we have the same function of depth and a cozy feeling of depth? Let's abstract those leaves into blocks! And let's add geometric flowers! The The lush green and golden pollenesque blocks, the warm red geometric flowers. Combine that with the magenta tree flowers and the phthalocyanine tones of the river below, and this scene conveys a sense of fertility and vitality. To put it another way, it's fucking sexy!