Here’s what I think Happened…
After I left off Opplopolis, I knew I wanted to paint, I just didn’t know what. So I got out my sketchbook and went at it. “Automatic drawing” you might call it, but not exactly. I had an interest in analytical perspective leftover from constructing the backgrounds for comics, so I started by plotting out these boxy rooms, and then I went wild filling them with melty mud people. I worked on the sketchbook drawings pretty religiously for a while, about an hour a day for a couple months.
This one I decided to give a try at painting. Still on paper. An experiment mainly.
So after a while, I was like, “I’m ready, let’s make some paintings”. And…
Well for one thing I’ve not been taking care of these. I’ve been treating them as scrap wood to be honest, so the presentation here is not the best. Besides that, I was trying some new techniques, and I wasn’t there yet. Conventional wisdom would be not to show these to anyone ever, but it’s work, I did it, here it is.
Oh. Oh no.
So I was having a grand time doing this stuff, but Shonda hated it. She hated this splooshy painting in particular. One day she said to me, “why don’t you just paint stuff?” I gave it a try, and after a couple of still-lifes it was clear that was the way to go. I still have fun and let my subconscious lead me, but now it’s more-or-less confined to the realm of real things.