San Diego, I hardly knew ye

Remember this painting? No? Last time I worked on it was over a year ago, and even then it had been in and out of storage for a years or more. I think I may be setting a record here.

Well, when we left off, it looked more or less like this:



Too neat, too boring. I wanted the kind of haphazard abstract genius that you see on the sides of warehouses that have been graffitied and re-painted a dozen times. I wanted a jumble of markings and blocks of color. So, okay, this happened:



A step in the right direction! I really liked it! It was fun to mess it up! But then I really messed it up:


I was like, oh, I'll work in some other San Diego elements and make it kind of like a collage of my experiences there. Flowers! Hummingbirds! Stucco buildings! Right. How about some fish tacos and a drawing of Jason writing his dissertation?

But now it looks like I over-thought it. Really it's best if I do as little thinking as possible when I paint.

Ugh. It's hard to have a painting sitting in this stage where I don't like it. But then again, when I get back to it I'll have an even better excuse to mess it up some more.

"I think it's funny that you're doing a painting about San Diego now that we're in Milwaukee," says Jason.

What will happen in the next episode? I can never predict! Stay tuned!