In 2008 I started this painting by applying a beautiful red background. I added the black lines to form rectangles on the canvas before thinking of dots. And even though the children asked for a painting without dots, the dots on this canvas just followed naturally.
Once I begin with painting dots, there is always the question “How many dots is enough?”. This painting feels good to me despite of the the fact that it isn’t full of dots. That doesn’t happen very often though.
I just realized that one of my last paintings that I worked on (2014) was actually set up in the same way. This time with a dark brown background, white lines and dots. In terms of composition, I was very happy with it, but then I put that canvas aside because I wanted to make something with more colors. So there are already lines on it, but no dots yet.
Warm red
Around the same time I made the painting from the above detail, I also painted the background on a new canvas. Again I chose a warm red background to start with. And I was so happy with the colour that I never got round to make it a real dot painting. Ever since there has been a beautiful warm red square hanging on my wall. I still think it’s a shame to paint something on top of this beautiful colour. Maybe later, when I’m all grown up.
***UPDATE*** I guess I’m all grown up now. In 2017 I painted lots of dots on the canvas with the warm red background. It’s called High Energy.
