Do You Dream In English?
2008 - 11"x12" Acrylic, black gesso, colored pencil, on wood.
Finished with one coat brush on Liquitex Matte Varnish #5232
(On Exhibit - Art Alley - Homewood, Alabama)

I was working on another painting along with this one called "Blue Mountain". It has a phrase at the bottom, "Do You Dream In English?" that became the inspiration for the dreamscape feel in this painting.

In the past, I had been reluctant to use repetitive themes from one painting to the next, but for the past few months, I have been experimenting pretty extensively with this. The M&M trees (a.k.a. lollipop trees) are the most obvious ones, but the flying turtle and fish have been used a few times as well.

In several recent paintings, I have experimented with not using paint on the entire surface and leaving some bare wood, or a previous color exposed near the edges. I also started experimenting with using this space to add some kind of drawing that sort of compliments the main painting, yet is still different in some way. This one has the field of M&M trees at the top, and it seems like daylight due to the bare wood for the background.