101 Reasons to Enjoy Today

This painting has some of the earliest collage bits that I made for a paper cake I made last year, the little side project that ended up becoming the seed for this whole collection. I love the ambiguous round fruit shape with creaminess around it, soft and invites the brain to wonder what it is. This one has actual dimension, like icing formed from modeling paste tinted light pink, so the surface itself has real texture. Pansies pop out all around the cake from gentle supernatural stems, floating magically. Some artistic liberties were taken here! 

The pansies in this cake are magenta with dark purple to black centers, deep little pools at the heart of each bloom. I love to look at the center of pansies and think about how dark they are with their velvety intensity. When I go to paint them, it feels unreal to go so black with the center color, like I'm cutting a small window into shadow right in the middle of all that magenta. I probably hold back to keep the whole composition working. A wonderful light green-blue background sets off the pink cake, giving the whole painting a fresh, airy lift, like the cake is floating in the coolest part of a summer sky.