"April into May", Acrylic on Gallery Wrap Canvas, 24"x30"

I know we have all been in "a funk" the past couple of months. The past week has been a struggle for me as it has been for many. A friend suggested that I use this moment to explore my art and get some of my emotions and feelings onto a canvas. I always thought that I wasn't "that kind of artist", you know, the kind that express their emotions in their work. Comes to be that I guess I am that artist because I found this whole process from beginning to end to be cathartic.

I wanted to share some of the beginning stages of the painting because I approached this unlike any painting I have ever done. I did not sketch anything out. If fact, I picked up my pencil and put it down on the table and started squeezing paint on my palette, using a large bristol brush and taking it from there.

I worked on it all night and finally went to bed around 3am.

When I woke up I took time to finish it. It was only until I got to the flicker on the left and the body that I looked at reference photos.

I like that when I posted it on Facebook that people saw a connection to it as well as noticed that it was something unlike I had ever done before. I wonder if that will happen again; that spark of emotion that drove me to paint something that was in my heart.

Comments and critiques appreciated. Thank for looking!