MY PROCESS
“When rethinking composition, tracing paper placed on the turpentine sketch allows me to play with other ideas.”
My painting starts with a fairly detailed sketch on canvas in thin turpentine layers with the warm primary colors of red, yellow and orange. I do this for two reasons, one it allows me the opportunity to work out the composition beforehand and it lays a foundation for the final painting layer of their complimentary cooler tones of green, blue and violet. I apply this directly over its warmer compliment in the same value. Allowing the interplay of these warm/cool layers to peek throughout the canvas creates warmth, brilliance and a vibration that excites the eye and is my motivation to begin anew.
“A part of my process is to use found objects and animate them. Here, I used glue and toothpicks and fasten the claws into position for my painting.”
I believe that as artists, our desire to create is innate and we are compelled to explore and play using various mediums as tools to express and interpret our visual world. Achieving one’s “style” is the culmination of life experience, personality and practice, practice, practice. To find joy in our unique form of self-expression is the reward.
