Blue Mountain
2008 - 11"x12" Acrylic, colored pencil, charcoal, newspaper, coffee grinds, on wood.
Finished with one coat brush on Liquitex Matte Varnish #5232
(On Exhibit - Art Alley - Homewood, Alabama)

You will notice from my list of ingredients above that coffee grinds were used. I glued the grinds in the colored mountain section. I really like the texture and will be experimenting further with this. I had no clue what to name the painting, but figured something related to coffee would be appropriate. There's a coffee from Jamaica called Blue Mountain, and since there is a blue mountain in the painting, it seemed like a good name.

There was another painting underneath this that I wasn't happy with, and it included the phrase "Do You Dream In English?". This is what you see at the bottom. I was working on another painting in parallel with this one and it has a dreamscape type feel, so I used the phrase as the title for that painting.

The previous painting had Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Brooklyn Bridge (see middle photo below). I wanted to keep the entire section at the top, but it just didn't look right. You can see the buildings of Manhattan at the very top, and I drew in the upside-down pyramids and turtles to represent Brooklyn (bottom photo below).

There are two squirrels climbing up the tree. Our apartment in Brooklyn is on the 3rd floor, and the window near my easle overlooks several trees. For several weeks I saw this little black squirrel that persistently followed a larger gray squirrel. It always caught my attention when I would see them.

There was a yellow daisy in the previous painting (see photos below) and it showed through to this painting (top left daisy). The sky was originally completely white and seemed like it needed something. I painted in one daisy and it looked good, so I added a few more.

The three images below are of the painting in progress.