Beginning a painting is one of the most exhilarating experiences in the world, a chance to risk everything without being injured or deposed. I start a painting by standing six inches in front of the white canvas, so close that I can see the individual threads and inhale the sweet tang of gesso. Then, with both palms, I make circular patterns, barely skimming the surface with my hands, working from the center outward, feeling every inch of the blank picture plane. The sound of skin against skin and the heat generated from the friction form a binding contract between me and the painting, both physical objects occupying space in the room. This tactile ritual informs every brushstroke that follows. As Sickert advised, “Start like a bricklayer, finish like a jeweler.”
Next, I tone the entire surface with an underpainting made of a lean color thinned only with a solvent such as Gamsol—no linseed oil. I observe the fatover-lean rule: fat means more oil, lean means less oil. Applying a lean color over fat can cause cracking and shrinking because the top layer dries faster than the bottom. Lean colors such as cadmiums, cerulean blue, and burnt umber are opaque, while fat colors such as alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, phthalo blue and green, and sap green are transparent. Add more fat as each successive layer dries. Don’t analyze when you begin. Turn off the ticker tape. Do first, think second. If it sucks, wipe it off and do it again. Make big shapes, squint, block in masses, and don’t edit. Self-awareness is the enemy. Let everything pour out, and then make corrections later.
Painting is delayed gratification; plant seeds now to harvest later. The reason that I begin with a middle tone is to have the option of going lighter or darker. Starting on a white ground means you can only go darker. If I anticipate a warmer final painting, then I’ll underpaint in cooler tones like magenta, pale green, or cerulean blue, while a cooler picture gets a warm underpainting of burnt sienna, orange, or cadmium red deep. Gilbert Stuart started with what he called “fog color,” a medium-valued gray upon which virtually any color would pop. Sickert used Indian red and pale blue to block in his lights and darks, respectively. Thomas Gainsborough, my favorite painter, used salad tongs to dip sponges into bowls of dark brown to block in generous masses. I love salad and have my own tongs for this purpose.
After my darks are laid in, I paint a series of vertical lines intersected by horizontals, which are quickly smeared away with paper towels; I go through a roll or two every day. The painting doesn’t even start until I’ve wiped away the whole image a few times. My compositions are constructed by placing thick, muscular paint at the bottom with thinner veiled washes at the top to orient my viewer the same way that they experience the real landscape, with the certainty of foreground under their feet and the eye searching the upper distance. Thicker paint at the edges also creates a framing effect, suggesting a picture within a picture, a lurch from one realm to another. Such conventions are nothing new: look at an Asher Durand composition or a landscape by the Swiss painter Alexandre Calame and you will witness the masterful use of pictorial elements (rocks, trees) arranged in a proscenium that frames a view of distant interior space. When composing, I observe the rule of thirds, which divides the canvas into thirds using two vertical lines and two horizontal lines. They intersect in four places, each one a detonation point of energy in the composition.
With the chassis of my image beginning to take form, I inject a sudden blast of intense, saturated color such as ruby red or teal, what a friend of mine calls “letting out the monkey.” Doing something crazy and random in the beginning will make you less precious later.
Although I work all day, the majority of my time is spent sitting in a battered rocking chair looking at what I’ve done. Office workers across the street from my studio have stopped me in front of my building to say they’ve enjoyed watching me paint, noting how much time I spend backing up and sitting down. Scary, huh? It is important to step back every forty-five seconds to see the entire image. If you don’t have a large enough space (I didn’t for a long time), then take a picture with your phone. Shrinking the image is a good way to spot compositional flaws; my entire subway ride home from the studio is spent looking at paintings on my iPhone. Most smart phones also have a mono feature, which is good for checking values.
Sometimes all the effort in the world won’t fix a dead composition. When that happens, without hesitation, I slice the painting to ribbons with a box cutter, because sometimes a flat line is better than life support.