What end of summer feels like

I had no plan or reference image for this painting. I started out with the neon pink underpainting (like I start most paintings), and then just intuitively drew my pencil sketch. I wasn’t setting out to make anything identifiable; the initial pencil sketch consisted of a couple of abstract shapes meeting on the canvas, but as I kept building on the painting layer after layer, this small surrealist landscape emerged. Almost every time I have made a piece of art with no plan and just tried to listen to the painting, I have ended up with something that is so clearly representative of what I am experiencing at the time.

The end of summer has always presented me with a strange feeling. As a child, I thought it was because I had to go back to school, but in adulthood, I know it is because my body is responding to the natural transition taking place all around me. I think this painting so clearly depicts the feeling this change brings.

I intentionally painted the flowers in this painting a solid color to convey a sense of overexposure; when so much light has shone on something that it begins to disappear. The flowers represent the coming season, and the grass surrounding them symbolizes the lush summer months that have passed.

To me, the spirals in the sky are the seasonal cycles turning, and the central star is the point they intersect at to evoke change.

The original is 11×14" in size and was created using acrylics on canvas.