Entropy
Not every experiment succeeds the way you expect, but sometimes that’s exactly what makes
it worth exploring.
20 August 2026
I wanted to push myself beyond my comfort zone, learn new techniques, and experiment without expectation.
Entropy became the safe place for me to do exactly that.
It all started with metallic paints. There is something so beautiful about seeing them layered together, side by side, in a chaotic mess. I liked it, but knew I wanted to take it further.
Lately, “What if?” has become one of the driving forces behind my painting. I love that each experiment forces me to see new possibilities and push the experiment further.
I had seen another artist use masking tape to create evenly spaced diagonal stripes across a painting. She painted over the exposed areas with contrasting colors, removed the tape, and completely transformed what was underneath.
Intrigued, I obviously wanted to try it.
I covered the canvas with diagonal strips of tape and debated what color to paint over everything. I considered light colors, multiple colors, and mocked up different possibilities before finally settling on a mixture of Payne’s Grey and Ultramarine Blue.
When I pulled off the tape, the result was dramatic. Maybe a little too dramatic.
Suddenly all of that loose, colorful chaos was trapped behind a series of dark, perfectly ordered diagonal lines. At first they reminded me of blinds. Then stairs. I started imagining ways to emphasize the steps or introduce another layer of structure.
Instead of creating more structure, I did the complete opposite. I started breaking the lines apart.
Using Color Shift and pearl paints, I painted back into the dark stripes and across the rest of the canvas. I added marks, obscured sections, connected colors, and allowed the rigid pattern to become increasingly fragmented. The clean diagonal lines were still there, but they were no longer completely in control.
Somewhere in all of that disruption, I started liking the painting much more and felt at ease again.
I hung it vertically at first, but once I switched to horizontal it just felt right.
In that orientation, my brain started turning it into some strange technicolor world viewed from above. I could see roads weaving through a city, tall buildings, flashes of color, and what looked like colorful explosions happening below. My son, naturally, saw something completely different. He found smiles everywhere, including a zombie smile and a dragon smile, and suggested the title The Smile of Color.
I may have exercised my parental veto on that one. 🤣
I kept coming back to Entropy.
Entropy is often associated with disorder, but what interested me about the word for this painting was the movement from order toward disorder. I had deliberately imposed a rigid structure onto something chaotic, and then spent the rest of the painting slowly breaking that structure apart.
The diagonal pattern hasn’t disappeared. Neither have the layers underneath it. They all coexist now, interrupted and altered by everything that came afterward.
Which feels like a pretty accurate record of how this painting was made.
It changed. I changed it again. I tried to control it. Then I disrupted the control. Eventually, I stopped changing it because I realized it didn’t need anything more. For me, that is how I know a painting is done.
Entropy 33 × 41 cm