"The Vestibule at the End of Time"

Semi Abstract Landscape

This painting took about five years to finish. Not because I worked on it constantly for 5 years but because I finished about 75% of it and was so pleased with it that I said it aside. A lot of my work goes this route. I start them, I get about 75% to 85% done, and in my mind, I can see the ending; in my head I've already seen the completed piece and am well pleased with it so I move on.

Also, by the time a painting gets to be near completion I've started three, four, or five more and the process is already in full force on other paintings. Keep in mind, I am working on about 25 paintings at any given time. That is how many WIPs I have on easels in some way shape or form.

Some in the groupings I finish and some, like this piece, are well pleasing just the way they are and get set aside to get finished later. I started painting on black canvas about 10 years ago for the first time, and I noticed it worked well with my style, so I've been trying to transition to nothing but black canvas.

The problem with black canvas is that you can't find anything of good quality that's been pre-primed black. There's a bunch of 8 oz products out there, but to get a good 12 or 14 oz pre-primed canvas weight, well that's just about impossible. So, what you must do is buy a good quality cotton duct 12 oz canvas and prime it yourself, which involves more work and less painting.

I honestly don't remember how this painting even came to being. It started on one of my wall easels in my home studio. So, it probably got started with excess paint from another piece and my guess is the main pink structure was probably started first. Anytime you see a weird centerpiece in my paintings, it's probably because that's where the painting started and then I worked the entire painting around it.

Again, all consequential. For me it's enjoyable to just form a landscape around everything and that's exactly what I did here. To me all of life is a landscape, literally and metaphysically. I think the painting is wonderful, it moves, has a thousand brush strokes, the colors are inviting and usher you in towards the middle. The sky is pure and simple becoming soothing.