Starting from Scratch

For the past two days, I've been battling with a specific idea on canvas. It is for an art pitch inspired by the city of San Francisco and a palette inspired by Yves Klein. The more I try to make this work, the more it resists. This tug of war was really draining. I was trying to create an abstract composition in the shape of the Bay Area. The shape looked super cool on paper but when I tried to transfer it onto the canvas, it just refused to work. Maybe part of the reason was that I picked the darker colors for the land mass and tried to break it up with the white for the water areas, and the overall image just looked dark and flat. Yesterday, I decided to cover the piece and start over but this time, just allow myself more flexibility in terms of composition and use the colors stated in the brief as a focal point as opposed to the entire painting. This time, it was more successful and I enjoyed the process more. I wonder if this brings me back to the same idea of freedom in my work and how working to a strict brief frustrates the piece as much as it frustrates me. Just a thought. 

I still have a few things to work on with this painting and then I'll start another interpretation of the brief. Take a look at how it looks by itself and in situ. Will keep posting progress