What Is Love – Continued

Since February of this year, I’ve been working on a very special art project. I’ve shared a few stories with you already, but for those first time readers – let’s have a quick recap…


I’ve created an art project that is being completed using animation techniques.


This means that I paint only a little bit of the canvas, then I take a photo before I paint a bit more and take another photo.


As the painting progresses we can see that I am also placing the bits of paint in certain locations on the canvas so that I can write words.


All these words will eventually create the poem entitled ‘What Is Love?’

The photos, above, show just four of the thirty animation frames that have been created. This has taken me nearly three months to get this far. Two weeks ago, I began to run into some problems…

As you can imagine, one challenge that I’m facing is keeping my paints from drying up. When I began this project, I was adding a bit of water to each colour about once every two weeks. Last month I had to add water to the paints every ten days. Two weeks ago, one of my colours did dry up and I realized that I would have to speed up this process…


This photo is just four frames more than the other one (above) and you may be able to notice that I’ve tripled the amount of bits that I’m painting. I also began to fill in the border more rapidly by creating growing lines of colour.

Just four days ago, another colour of paint dried up on me. If I continued at even this accelerated pace, I would surely be losing even more colours so I had to find a solution.

My solution is to try to complete this painting as quickly as possible – no holds barred! This means that the animation film that I was hoping to create is no longer possible. The amount of paint that I now have to apply is so great that any animated rhythm of motion that I was trying to create is no longer possible. But I won’t let that get me down…

The most significant point about this painting is simply the idea behind it. Yes – it’s a cool idea to create an animation film of this painting’s progress. Yes – it’s a cool idea to place the bits of paint onto the canvas to write a poem. Yes – it’s totally cool that the end result is to be a portrait of my beautiful wife. I have successfully brought these ideas to life, so I am happy. The fact that I will have to finish this canvas within the next six weeks, thus losing the rhythms that I wanted to create is just how life goes…

Life is about learning and I’ve learned a lot through this process. It doesn’t bother me that I was unable to fully realize these ideas. Instead I feel great for having brought these ideas to life in the first place. Maybe in the future I will attempt another project like this, but I will prepare for it differently – having learned what to do and what not to do from this project.


This is frame #33


This is frame #34.

If I had no problems with my paints drying up there would have been close to fifteen frames separating these two images, so you can see how much more work I’m putting into each frame. By frame #40 the entire poem will be written and the entire border will be complete… then I can fill in the rest of the canvas to reveal my wife’s portrait.

I imagine I may have other complications arising while I work to complete this project, so I would like all of you to send my a little ‘luck’ for my fruition.

Thanking you all in advance,

Jim