"On The Road Again"

The First of Many
I created this painting during University for my second year painting class back in April 2008. It was the end of semester and by this time I was ready to do my own thing with my paintings. Thankfully the project subject was of my choice, and I had just recently been traveling and taken some really exciting pictures. I took the original photo into Photoshop and played with the effects until I found the image you see above. What motivated me most about this photo in particular was the depth it created with the wet road descending compared to the water marks on the windshield. At first I thought I wanted to create a representational painting, but then after it was finished the effect that I wanted in this painting was just not there, so I went back in to keep working at it. Now, during this time I was certain I would never be an abstract artist at all. My thoughts exactly were "It's rediculous how someone can make millions by throwing paint at a canvas"... Little did I know...there just might be a bit more to it than that... So, when I started to re-work this painting with a bit of abstract I created even more depth and interpretation which intrigued me even more! I then became excited to see representational and abstract working together to create something more, which at the time I didn't think that was the solution at all!

This painting was one of my first works that were avaiable for sale, and I wish I had taken some progress pictures. It was really interesting to see how it eveovled, expeically from the original photo (which I should have kept as well). Perhaps that should have been the part that I listened to in University, especially cause it was all my teachers ever talked about... "Document Keishia, Documenting your work, Document! Document! DOCUMENT!"

Oh... you live and you learn...and then you live some more!