Why I Keep Painting Waves

Hey, hello there, friend!

Ever since I painted my very first wave in the early 90s, something about it stayed with me.

Not just visually. Physically. Let me explain…

At the time, I painted it for my twin brother, who used to surf. I remember sitting there with one of my professors, trying to follow the same technique he was showing me, and suddenly something clicked in my body before I even had the language for it. Back then, I had no understanding of flow states, creative consciousness, nervous system regulation, or any of the things I talk about today.

My twin brother original wave in oil on canvas, you can notice my old signature A. Daló

My twin brother’s original wave painting in oil on canvas. You can also notice my old signature, “A. Daló.” Back then, I used the “A” from Adrianna and my last name, Daló.

I have to say, this photo looks much lighter than the original painting because of Photoshop. Unfortunately, we no longer have this piece. At the time, I didn’t know much about properly protecting paintings, and after years exposed to humidity in Brazil, it didn’t survive.

Honestly, there’s something poetic about that now. The original wave disappeared physically, but somehow the feeling behind it never left me.

I just knew that painting that wave felt effortless. And honestly, I think every wave I painted after that was, in some way, an attempt to return to that feeling again.

The same thing happened with my palm trees years later. Certain subjects kept finding me long before I intellectually understood why.

I started painting oils as a teenager, but life interrupted art many times after that. College, moving to the United States, adapting to a completely new reality, and years where I honestly wasn’t painting much at all. Then eventually, I began experimenting with acrylics without really knowing what I was doing.

And that changed everything because acrylic doesn’t really allow me to overthink. It asks me to moves too fast, and to trust the process: to flow from one side of the canvas to the other before the paint dries, to let colors merge naturally, to stop controlling every little thing, and to o allow the excess paint to leave its own trace behind.

Even now, after almost a decade of painting professionally, that remains one of my favorite parts of the process: The speed, movement, freedom, and the surprise.

Somewhere during those years in Hermosa Beach, I started noticing the wave returning again and again. At first subtly, then constantly. It would always find me. And honestly, that still feels like magic to me.

What’s interesting is that from the outside, people may think I’m repeating the same subject over and over. But to me, what looks like repetition has never been repetition at all, because each painting carries a completely different energy, frequencies, movement, emotional states, and different conversations with color and texture.

Especially during my recent 100 Days of Painting challenge, something accelerated in the work between day 30 and day 100. My strokes loosened. The paintings became more layered, more abstract, more alive. I became obsessed with experimenting through the language of waves, opening myself to color palettes I would’ve resisted before.

It honestly felt like breaking through a glass ceiling creatively.

And the more I painted, the less the waves felt like literal oceans. They started feeling like movement itself. Like emotional states. Like life continuously reshaping itself.

Growing up in Brazil, my relationship with the ocean was completely different. I used to surf warm Atlantic waters that felt softer, calmer, familiar. California changed that experience for me entirely. The Pacific feels more mysterious. Colder. Stronger. More unpredictable.

But somehow… I’ve always been drawn back to the water no matter where I am.

The ocean is probably the place where I feel the miracle of life the most clearly.From far away, it looks calm and infinite. The horizon line almost feels eternal, like it keeps asking you how much further you’re willing to see beyond yourself. But underneath that calm surface, everything is constantly moving, shifting, colliding, evolving.

Maybe that’s why I connect to it so deeply. Because the ocean holds both peace and chaos at the same time. Just like us.

And maybe that’s also why I no longer fear painting the same motif over and over again. I don’t fear repetition. My fear is losing evolution. Losing movement. Forcing something that no longer wants to grow naturally.

That’s why every wave becomes its own investigation. Its own energy, its own rhythm, its own living thing. And maybe that’s what art really is in the end. Not always expressing something we already understand… but staying close enough to the mystery that it continues revealing itself to us over time.

If you’d like to experience these newest works in person, I would love to invite you to my upcoming solo show, . Many of these recent paintings were born during this season of exploration, movement, and complete creative surrender, and I truly cannot wait to share them with you.

Below is the official flyer! Please RSVP here.

Color Your Life!

Drica