I started this painting while we were waiting for the elections results, which was taking an anxiety producing amount of time — though I really believe it’s a great feat getting them all counted so quickly. Thanks to all those ballot counters.

I mounted some red gampi paper — a highly textured paper — on to a canvas some months back. I knew I wanted to paint either a forest or a tree. Tuesday I went with the tree idea. I’ve done several trees where I don’t used local color. I seem to enjoy painting blue trees. I also wanted a leaf pattern that was more like an arc, with vague leaf shapes not necessarily attached to the tree. These ideas came as I was working on the painting.

I did some background abstract shapes then painted them over in red, so they are like distant shadows. I began with a twisted blue tree, then leaves of many colors. At some point, circles made their appearance. I indulged my love of shiny colors with gold, and silver paint, as well as gold foil flakes.

There’s a lot of detail work and I used a nib pen and ink for a lot of the lines — not necessarily a good choice for such roughly textured paper — but a good one for filling up long periods of time. I hope the jagged lines add a bit of dynamic movement.

So I finally finished it today, and I’m happy with it and the election results. Maybe even exuberant.

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