It's A Good Day | acrylic on canvas

Every day is a good day in Florida where the sun is always shining. I feel lighthearted and cheerful when I look at my new painting, It's A Good Day. The painting represents how the sun creates and sustains nature's garden. The very subtle vertical elements remind me that even the sunniest garden need nourishing rain.

Like many of my paintings, when I started the work I had no plan, except I knew the sun had to be my main focus. Once the sun was painted, I taped it off, not to be seen again for quite awhile. I then felt like playing around with paint flow, so I hoisted the huge canvas onto an easel and watched with glee as a multitude of colors cascaded down the canvas. Once it was done, I knew my chosen colors were way too bold so, once dry, I applied a series of translucent glazes. This toned down the intensity but preserved what I liked about the vertical lines. After that it was time to play with drips, drabs and swirls of color. My right brain took over and, through no planning by my left brain, a magical garden appeared. Now it was time to untape the sun. But, no, the sun appeared outlandishly big. I stared sullenly at my titanic sun for days, until a solution appeared on TV! An image of a sun in a random commercial gave me that ahah moment. My air brush was pulled out of storage, colors mixed and the spraying commenced.

Lesson learned: When a problem is bugging you, your brain is hard at work even when you don't realize it. So when you think you're at a standstill, don't fret, the answer WILL come to you.