This first step in what will become an oil painting is about light, Forest light.
That’s also the name I will give it.
Objective: Make this a short painting for inspiration and study. Let’s see if I can keep it this way. Short and simple, that is 🙂

I started painting this tonight, at dusk, enclosed in my green backyard. Music flowing free in the evening air, feeling absolutely amazing.

I started the evening with the following song [Link], which, to me, feels like it’s capturing the feeling pretty well.

I want to describe just how I feel because, really, if I can ever capture it in a painting, fully and completely, I will know I have achieved my goal as an artist.

The way I feel is – absolutely invincible. Not a victory over anyone specific or any particular problem – but a sense of uncontested freedom and victory over life’s obstacles as a whole. More than that – it’s as if life is pure joy. I feel self confidence so absolute, it doesn’t even feel like it relates specifically to me as an individual, but as if I am that feeling and there is nothing left but to bless life.
I was thinking to myself… feeling the way I did is the reason I am an artist, so that I can communicate it through art.

People often wonder in today’s culture, what reason a man has for staying loyal to one’s conscience. This is my answer; To be able to feel like this, despite all of life’s problems, struggles to figure out right from wrong and all the stuff that brings one down to the point of wanting to give up one’s goals. Personally, I’ve had my share of those and still do. I’m not gonna lie about it.
But so long as I can feel the way I did tonight, life is worth living and the struggle for your goals is worth having, no matter the hardships. Bring it on.