This image isn't very good, but it was my first 'fire painting'. It's done in oils, deeply textured, painted with a knife. The inspiration was seeing people buy 'red canvases' on EBay. This painting is called "Lava". I didn't just want to do a 'red canvas'. I wanted to paint FIRE.
Someone let me know I was on the right path by buying this from me right away for $150. Most of what I had painted before sold for under $80.This was a fortune for a painting to me. I had just started painting abstracts. This was also one of my first oil paintings.
I tell other people 'what you do that comes easy to you is probably what you're best at, but often we dismiss this and beat our heads against the wall trying things we find challenging.' I don't follow my own advise. Painting fire comes easy to me.
I need to do it more often.
I spent the day painting two paintings and then looking up some old images. It's been a bit of a humbling, emotional experience. I don't claim to be the most talented artist, but I sometimes forget all the different chances I've had to be creative. I can't believe I ever stopped painting for a while. I think of all I could have learned in that time. I forgot how enjoyable it is to work on a painting and see it transform, see all the possibilities. Each thing you do to the painting changes it forever. And they all take on a life of their own. I have yet to begin to create something, have an idea in my head as to how it will turn out and have it actually turn out that way. They always take their own path.
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