This is the next painting in the Ruby series. At first, the series was all about being inspired by the original Ruby panting from my sketchbook 20+ years ago. Ruby’s now out of the sketchbook and in an old-fashioned frame in my studio with a costume jewelry ruby pasted on the glass. She kinda watches over whatever’s going on on the easel, saying stuff to the other paintings like, “So, you really don’t quite have a color sense, do you?” and “Let’s talk a little bit about the power of blue,” and “I popped into this universe fully formed in about 10 minutes. You?”

But eventually the series turned into (or, is turning into) a play with acrylics and the texture created by 1) starting with a textured watercolor paper in the first place and, 2) scumbling so much that the texture just starts to build up and becomes a kind of friend/foe of the painting.