City on Stilts

gouache and marker

"City on Stilts" is about two lovers finding their way back to each other. This piece originally started as a nostalgic memory of my first trip to California and looking at all the houses inches away from toppling down. After three attempts at creating the piece, and I was still not satisfied with the outcomes. Amid my fourth attempt, two of my closest friends were having a reconciliation after breaking up. They were both at my house and very rare with emotion. After many tears were shed, they ended up cuddled up on my bed, where I was able to render their faces before the moment slipped away quickly. This human interaction was exactly what was necessary to capture the human experience outside of just nostalgia from the past.