Although I was given a powerful inspirational dream this morning, tapa cloth, for some reason, calls me as a first painting project back from decades of hiatus from painting. Tapa is a primitive cloth that’s handmade and dyed from tree bark. I first encountered it in Hawaii and for some reason the crude geometric patterns in shades of burnt sienna and black have always captivated my imagination

Here are a couple more examples from OceanicTribalArt.

My mentor always encouraged me to work on a large canvas, which I don’t currently possess. So here’s my plan. I will make a preliminary sketch based on the beautiful sample of tapa cloth pictured above and then paint it when my large watercolor block paper arrives. At first blush this may seem like cheating but sketching an appropriation of the above photo and blending the colors will certainly be a challenge.

So that’s what’s next up for me on the art dimension. I love the featured print (but the others too). Now I can paint it and frame it and make it mine. Who knows. Maybe I will take it in an abstract direction. So excited!