HOME | DD

Description
Autumn
(2003)
Pen, ink &
Watercolor
9”x12”
$30

June 16th- I had just began work on the new colors for Autumn. I began washing in the yellows and leaving the board show through for the highlights. Next came three layers of progressively darker ultramarine blue with a little Payne’s gray. In Elena G. Millie’s preface to Patrick Nagel’s book she says he used more Payne’s gray than anyone, and I’ve always sworn that it is the secret to all my best paintings.
Then, because it sets on top of the watercolors rather than being absorbed like Chinese white, I went to spatter in the stars with white acrylic. Just before I commenced with my trusty toothbrush, the urge struck me to lift out some of the sky color from between the branches of the tree on the left.
I marveled at the way the blue washed into the white and used my still damp brush to wash down some more blue into the trees in the background.
And that’s when it happened for me, when the painting became more than it was. It took on that otherworldly quality the first version seems to lack. A most indefinable definable moment.

Description
Autumn
(2003)
Pen, ink &
Watercolor
9”x12”
$30

June 16th- I had just began work on the new colors for Autumn. I began washing in the yellows and leaving the board show through for the highlights. Next came three layers of progressively darker ultramarine blue with a little Payne’s gray. In Elena G. Millie’s preface to Patrick Nagel’s book she says he used more Payne’s gray than anyone, and I’ve always sworn that it is the secret to all my best paintings.
Then, because it sets on top of the watercolors rather than being absorbed like Chinese white, I went to spatter in the stars with white acrylic. Just before I commenced with my trusty toothbrush, the urge struck me to lift out some of the sky color from between the branches of the tree on the left.
I marveled at the way the blue washed into the white and used my still damp brush to wash down some more blue into the trees in the background.
And that’s when it happened for me, when the painting became more than it was. It took on that otherworldly quality the first version seems to lack. A most indefinable definable moment.