Painting - Lifeline in Paint

For an assignment in my painting class, we were tasked with creating an original painting utilizing ten specific shades of colour.  The specific shades were to be utilized how ever we chose, in any combination.  Each hue was to represent how we felt a year in our life was, ten hues, each for a year spanning our last decade.  We were otherwise given very little instruction.

It was, in many respects a very free-form exercise.  I picked my hues, wrote a brief blurb for each, figured out what each year was or meant, and then simply went to task.  What follows is a fantastic expression of who I am on canvas, but also impressively cryptic.  It is me, in many respects, but only through the rationalization of my own head.

I did the following on stretched canvas.

 The initial painting, using Sienna and some grey, brush form is natural using a 5/8 and working in long strokes.  Filled in with some Q.Red

 Began adding greys here, filled in more red and suddenly decided to cut the canvas with a long slash of Mars Black.  Also then grew a falling type of object over the slash.

 Added a considerable amount of blue now, and a violet highlight.  A second, off-tint hue of blue to create a slight sense of dynamicism.

 A thoughtful consideration of the painting from upside down, or is it right side up?  Perhaps it does not matter, more violet added, refining the yellow and adding highlights.

Sudden inspiration, a Pollock-style slash of Ultramarine blue in the middle of the canvas, perhaps a hole, perhaps a rent or rip through to something else, cuts all the colour apart.  Edged in White,

More texturing added throughout the painting.

Then I considered it done.

Part of our critique was to hear what classmates said about our paintings.  Words that came up frequently were Complexity, Rough, Powerful, Original, Chaotic, Vibrant, Energetic, and Asymmetrical.