10 Year Anniversary: The Painting Diary, Day 1 of 30

This year marks 10 years since I rebooted my life and started painting again after a very long hiatus from art. When I restarted 10 years ago, painting was very much a struggle and I was lucky to finish a few paintings per year. This year, 2019, I painted over 35 paintings! I’m feeling the art spirit like never before. To celebrate this 10 year cycle I will be posting a painting a day for the rest of the month. The following 30 posts will be a chronological painting diary of some of my favorite paintings from the last 10 years. I’ll try my best to recall the stories and meanings behind each of the paintings.

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Painting Diary 1 of 30: Roots and Branches 2009

This painting was my first painting in about 9 years. I had given up on painting after I became frustrated by a lack of direction, and general lack of belief in my ability as an artist. It’s a small oil painting, only 8x10 inches but I spent a very long time painting it, reworking the background several times until I found something pleasing. I didn’t have a concept in mind when I started it, I was just working from a small pencil sketch I had done of a tree in Volunteer Park in Seattle. Looking back, the symbolism of this painting is very rich and personal for me. It’s a self portrait and the beginning of a new chapter of my life. I would soon uproot my whole life, leave much behind and move on to a new and more fully realized me. I didn’t know any of this change was about to take place when I painted this, but something in me was aware of things to come and this little painting is the first bubble to have broken the surface. I gifted the original to my mom for Christmas a few years later and when she died I took the painting back and now treasure it and would never consider selling it for any price. You can however find a print of this in my store.

Roots and Branches, 2009