Hope

I've got a thing for flames. I'm kinda obsessed with them. I had in the back of my mind this idea to create a series of paintings having to do with candles, but I never really acted on it.

I never really know what I'm going to paint. Mostly, I had just been doing backdrops with extra paint I had from previous paintings. You're supposed to wait for the background to dry before you start painting on top of it--but I rarely ever do, so it's good for me to get my backdrops ready when I don't have a plan to paint on top of them yet. That way, they get plenty of time to dry while I wait for my muse.

This was supposed to be another boat painting. The 3rd attempt actually. I've had 2 other blue, water-like backdrops ready for boats, but once again, I took a different wave.

Because of the dark blue, I always thought it looked like water at night. After thinking about light and flames, I toyed with the idea of putting a candle on it. Then, I came up with this--my artistic representation of hope. I even searched for leaves to model for me (I always do better when I'm drawing from an actual object). In the end, a dry, cupped, rusty brown one made the cut. It's job was to hold the bright ray of hope amidst an ocean of darkness.

And I hope I'm kinda like that leaf.