In The Mood  is  finished. This is an upbeat jazz music, so I used different shades  of yellow, red, and multiple blues to add to the feeling of   movement. For the flow of the music the first coat I painted a light magenta. I than lightly painted the music with a gold color pick from the brass instruments.  I also used a light gray for the Mondrian squares, and to represent the suit color of the band  on the vertical shafts.

In the middle, out-of-place, I placed three notes that represent the lower bass music.  To separate them from the rest of the music flow, I reduced their height  and used darker colors, to represent the lower tones.

This is also the first painting where the aluminum frame defines the size of the artwork. The  three canvases are than used to fill in the spaces inside the frame, and to more importantly offer support for the flow of the music. The metal frame makes it a lot easier to work with different heights of canvases. That flexibility is nice, and framing the artwork may be a direction to follow.  My problems with using more aluminum is finding lengths with few flaws,  the increased complexity, and issues in making sure everything ends up looking square.

I can judge my feelings for an artwork by a glance, and am happy with the results of this one.  This painting is more fluid in its movement,  and is less musical looking, when compared to the recent artwork,  I will always love You.  That artwork I feel has a structure that is too rigid like notation. This change in thinking means that I am looking to paint artworks  that are less notational, and far less sheet musical, looking.

With the death of Tom Petty, next up I am going to paint one of his great classics, Running Down a Dream.

Scott Von Holzen