Addictive Puzzle

The idea for addictive puzzle came from an old doodle, in the doodle there were also groups of people on each level, trying to assemble the pieces, however the drawing was complex enough without having to depict a hundred people! The original concept had to do with the process of scientific discovery... you have a bunch of pieces that are all over the place, and many groups of people try to put them together. Without the people in the final work the message is lost a little, however you still get the feeling that a puzzle is sitting there, waiting to be assembled.

The method for this painting was rather straight forward. I started with a quick outline of where the different levels would be and then overlaid an heavy wash of pink and yellow and beige. Then I drew the outline of each puzzle piece, and filled in the colours as I went. Making the puzzle pieces was quite a chore, in fact I see now looking at the photo that a few are not filled in. The major challenge was maintaining the different sizes of the pieces, each level down the pieces get smaller. I called it addictive puzzle because when I started to look at the final work I couldn't take my eyes off it.

22x30" cold press, 2009