Process

When I first started doing little videos about my works in process people asked if I could explain my process somewhat.

Unfortunately that's a really difficult question for me to answer. So much is based on decades of practice, muscle memory, experimentation, schooling, and countless hours looking at other artists work and reading about things like color theory and the properties of paint and a million other little things. But I'll try to explain a little of my thoughts on the subject anyway.

The first part of it is the relationship I have with the painting. I might come up with the initial idea of what the painting is going to be, but the rest of it is a sort of back and forth dialogue between me and the painting. With me doing a lot of 'listening' to what the painting needs.

The way this dialogue might unfold is this.

1. Using a colored pencil or really thin paint in a single color, I'll very briefly sketch in what I'm going to paint. Really, it's just to get some landmarks down so I don't need to be thinking about it during the next stage. Here's a picture of what this stage might look like.

2. After that, I try and fill up the canvas or panel all at once. I don't spend too much time worrying about whether the color I am using is right (although I do try and keep my colors clean, not muddy), or whether things are 100% how I want them to be. The idea behind this is that a painting is not individual parts but a whole, and you always need to be looking at it holistically instead of in individual pieces. During this stage I thin my paints with an artists grade turpentine so that they are semi-translucent. This is so there won't be a lot of texture later, so if you want to do a major change you can without sanding. Also, the turp speeds the drying time up A LOT!.

3. Up until now this is pretty much how all my paintings start, but after this the next stage depends on what kind of painting it is. If it's a portrait of an animal for instance I will add several more layers of thin paint to achieve a good realistic yet painterly representation of what I'm painting. If it's one of my landscapes the next stage will likely be the only other stage I'll do. There won't be much in the way of blending or shading, brush strokes will be evident as will texture.