My art just freaked me out.

I am working on a Flash gallery slideshow for my paintings, and so I’m opening up the photos in Photoshop and re-sizing them to fit my new space. And I’m having the weirdest physical reaction: as I was tweaking the color and contrast on “At Night,” just for fun I checked the “colorize” box in the Hue and Saturation panel, and it basically turned my painting into a warm grayscale. And the second I did that, my heart started beating faster and I didn’t want to look at it anymore. I tried it with a second painting, “CIty in Miniature,” and I had the same reaction.

What in the world is up with that? I’m usually pretty in tune with my body and my emotions, but this one I can’t figure out. What is it about my artwork (or about me) that causes me to have that reaction when I see it in grayscale or duotone?

I don’t even want to post an example here to show you what I am talking about. I’m going to have to think about this.