Working Methods
To ensure the integrity and longevity of my work, I use only professional materials and methods, and prepare my own canvas and birch panel supports, as I find they are more responsive than manufactured ones. They are sized or sealed, then primed with two coats of gesso, providing an archivally sound support, with a nice "tooth" to the working surface.
Once dry, these are thinly toned with a small amount of pigment and Gamblin's "Gamsol". This tone, or imprimatura, is usually a bright red-orange or yellow-ochre for landscapes, and for portraits, a warm mid-tone gray. Glimpses of this coloured ground, as well as of each succeeding step, are left untouched. This gives a fresh, lively quality to the finished work.
Either painting from life or from quick sketches, I now lightly block in the composition with gestural lines and value-masses, then, setting out a limited palette with a generous amount of paint, I begin to work rapidly over the whole surface, focusing on the essentials, leaving details for later.
The paints are seldom mixed on my palette, as this compounding of the pigments muddies them, causing them to lose their pure hues. Rather, the paints are alllowed to mix in the brushes and on the support as I work, allowing them to "mix in the eye."
To my mind, viewing art is an active, rather than a passive process. I don't spell everything out for the viewer; they, also, need to make an effort, to be involved.
It is essential to my style that the work is painted "alla prima", or "at the first stroke", and completed wet-in-wet within hours or days. (Plus the 18 years it took me to learn how to paint like this!)