Three Feet from Gold

The title comes from a story in Think and Grow Rich: a man digs for gold, gives up, and sells his claim. The new owner brings in a specialist who tells him where to dig, and he strikes the vein three feet from where the original owner stopped.

I drew the first version of this piece in 2016 on my iPad Pro as I was exploring new tools. A hand reaching for a crown, positioned just short of touching it. The idea focused on the near-miss, reaching but not quite touching. I still like this version, and the concept has always stuck with me as a reminder to keep persevering.

In 2020 I went back in. I rebuilt the piece in Photoshop, again playing with new tools and skills I had gained, this time with molten gold textures, real lighting, and reflective surfaces, so the hand reads as if it's dripping molten gold instead of a flat shape. Same composition, same idea. The difference is entirely in the material. The molten gold gives the piece a heavier feel and the pain of pushing through molten metal.

I designed the finished piece to run as wall art and as a shirt, where the composition gets reframed into a tighter geometric crop. The 2016 original is next to the updated version at the bottom for comparison. The four years between the two versions are the actual subject of this page.