My favorite part of any design process is the initial brainstorm. I just try to get as many ideas on paper as possible. The key here is to work in an "open mode" where everything is possible. Quantity, not quality. ~Some of my worst ideas come out when I am in open mode~(said in a bragging tone).
I vacillate between wanting to communicate to the masses and wanting to be authentic and just do what I see, not worrying about the communicating part. There is a fine line between the two, and that is where I've decided to put my energy these days. I stand up close to the canvas, being as free and authentic as my mind lets me, then I walk backwards and look at the painting, imagining how others would see it, or how it communicates something. Actual proximity to the image being created is as powerful as fluctuations in mindset.
That moment in time where we decide to really go for it, and live life to the fullest. It’s the moment that we accept that we have flaws, but we don’t care about that anymore. At that particular moment, this is what it would actually look like. Rays of bright color flashing outward from the details. The yellows and oranges around the edges are those colors, and the detail area in the middle is where this emanates from. That detailed area in the middle represents the single personality. The blue-green on the bottom right is just how it is anchored in time. It is where the light comes from.
I wanted her hands, like fists, to be visibly gripping the steering wheel, and the look in her eye to be intense and also determined. His silhouette is a little blurred out, and large to reflect that she sees him as a looming force in her life. It is also flat because her relationship with him is going from being tangled up in him, and all the details, to something more clear cut, and defined.
The process of discovering how to illustrate ideas that are slippery and difficult to explain requires a lot of patience. I remember several times while painting these, I would just look at them and sit and wonder where to go next. I would wait patiently until I was certain what the next step was.
