ArtistsNetwork.com 43theviewer’seyetomovethroughout
thepainting.“Iputthesubjectinthe
centerofthepictureandthenI sort
ofbalancearoundit,”saystheartist.
“It’saninstinctivething.I gravitate
tothesquare.I havelongviewsand
short.There’sa modernaspecttomy
workofjustdesigninga rectangle.”
OnceFrederickhasfinalizedhis
ideasinthesmallsketchpainting,
heproceedstothefinalcanvas,
beginningwitha carefullinedrawing
incharcoalpencil.Heensuresthatthe
perspectiveisaccurate,delineating
moreorlessallofthedetail.Hethen
fixesthecharcoalandcontinuesto
a monochromeunderpainting.“I’m
consistentwiththecolorI usefor
this—amixtureofhalfindigoand
halfrawumber,”hesays.“Thisgives
a darkblue-green,a colorthatworks
nicelyinthelatterstages.It’salsonot
black,whichcanbea bitdeadening.”
is that it provides automatic harmo-
nies,” the artist says. “The analogy
I like to use is that although a piano
has 88 keys, you don’t use them all in
a single piece of music. Rather, the
piece is written in a key that only uses
some of the notes. This yields particu-
lar harmonies and moods.”
Frederick notes that color is experi-
enced through relationships, so that
even when the pigment range is
limited, the viewer still will experience
a full range of color. In the case of his
chosen triad, the reddest-red obtain-
able will be a mix of yellow-orange and
violet, which will yield something that
looks like burnt sienna. In the context
of the painting, it will work as a strong
red. “I often like to play a guessing
game with my wife,” says Frederick.
“I show her a color on my palette and
ask her to guess where I’ve placed it in
the painting. Usually, it’s impossible
for her to find.”
Frederick says that he leaves the
option open to move outside the triad
if he needs to achieve a particular
type of drama in a painting. “Suppose
I have a car with red taillights,” he
says. “If I use just a touch of real red,
they’ll really glow, with a pop that’s
much more dramatic than if I had
used red elsewhere.”
Controlling color with a limited
palette requires great sensitivity and
accuracy. “Color is lineal,” says the
artist. “There’s no curve when mixing
two colors. If I mix viridian into
violet, there’s an indigo in the middle.
As I get toward violet, there’s a
shade. Mixing from viridian toward
yellow-orange, I can create a range
of greens and then yellows. If I add
white, I get other kinds of opacity.
Then if I mix from violet toward
orange, I get some interesting reds.
This palette is the heart of color. Even
without any real red, blue or yellow,
it has an amazing harmony.”
Working over his underpainting,
Frederick follows a time-honored
strategy of keeping the paint some-
what transparent in the shadows so
that there’s interplay between the
layers. He does this by keeping the
paint a little dry and pulling it onto
the surface with a bristle brush, leav-
ing lots of tiny gaps and openings.OPPOSITE
Sea Street
oil on linen, 40x40
BELOW
Wedding Night
oil on linen, 60x60 The artist combines this mixture
with white to paint a fully rendered and
highly detailed monochrome version of
the image. “A lot of people comment on
how finished the work looks at this
stage,” the artist says. “When I’ve
completed it, I glaze over it with a
warmer color using a combination of
burnt sienna and raw umber mixed
with Liquin and turpentine—a kind
of gravy. It’s a very thin layer that
I rub back so that it ‘sits’ in any tiny
gaps in the underpainting and subtly
influences the color. It’s a true glaze.”
Turning to a
Color Triad
Once the underpainting is dry,
Frederick begins the final layer. To do
this, he employs a limited palette using
just three colors and white. “For most
paintings, my go-to triad is viridian
green, violet and yellow-orange,” he
says. This may seem a surprising
choice, as the palette doesn’t feature
the primary colors of red, yellow and
blue. “The advantage of this approach