#Commute No. 7

I put a call out to Instagram and Facebook the other day for you guys to help me decide which image to paint next, and I was a little surprised by the results. Personally I think I was leaning towards 2 or 3, but you guys picked this one. But that's why I enjoy asking the internet when I'm feeling indecisive - I'm always surprised by what other people find interesting versus what I'm drawn towards. In a way, I feel like this whole project is about finding the beauty in the mundane everyday things, and what I find to be the most beautiful won't necessarily be the same as the person standing next to me. I literally drive by these sights every single day on my way to and from work, so this project forces me to really LOOK at it and celebrate the beauty in it. I love it for that. 

We just got back from our beach vacation with my family over the weekend, so working on this painting was a nice, relaxing way to ease back into our normal routine. It was my first time painting cows for this series, so that was interesting. This #commute series is basically an exercise I've created for myself to try to loosen things up with my painting style. Honestly, I wish I did these in an even looser style. I often find myself focusing on some details and then I have to force myself to step back and look at it more as a big picture. The cows were good practice with that because even though I knew I was painting cows, I had to focus on just painting the shapes and colors that made up the cows. (My fellow illustration majors from Moore who had Bill Brown for life drawing will know what I'm talking about.)

Pictured above is the original Instagram photo (on the left) next to the final painting inspired by it. You can read more about why I started this series here, and you can see my photo editing process for the Instagram photos here.

---

Painting at top created with Photoshop.
Prints and other products with my work on them are available in my Society6 shop.