It began swimmingly…

I’m sure you have some thoughts and ideas as to why I decided to paint something as busy as Shoal, and that’s what makes it funny because the reason it got started was a desire to not think, and not have ideas.

Before starting Shoal, I’d been working on a complex and deep painting and was looking for a period of time where I could do the exact opposite—turn off.

At first the sketch was a doodle; a playful escape to occupy my mind as I thought about some other thing I wanted to create. In the big scheme of things fish are very easy to draw, and it’s pretty difficult to get them wrong. So I sketched the picture and posted what I’d done… That’s when it became interesting.

Almost immediately I started to get many more people responding than usual. Instead of tens of likes, I was getting hundreds and soon, instead of hundreds, I was getting thousands. I was blown away.

So I kept going.

I’ve always loved drawing and painting fish. I think it’s the mixture of the motion and freedom as objects effortless float through space. I love the colors how easy it is to draw them. It’s almost impossible to get the form of a fish wrong because theres so many forms to choose from! You could draw a fish…I love that!

Combine with the ease, large, story-less pictures relax me. They ask nothing from me as I create them, when so many of my other paintings require focus and a story telling, particularly with my intimate paintings. Shoal has no story. It is what it is–a place for your eyes to swim around, in a big wash of beautiful, colorful fish. :) Shoal makes your mind discover new things each time you look, even if none of those things matter.

It’s the perfect picture to look at as you sit on the toilet! - Believe it or not I took this into consideration as I’m creating it!