“I travel to most of the places I paint.
Afterwards, the location, the moment, will
come to mind when I’m daydreaming. I could
be driving. I could be eating. These idea
come when I least expect it. It’s like an image
that stays with me and it’ll only disappear if
I paint it. I painted this whirlpool one week
after I went to Niagara Falls.
When I paint outside, I use Acryla Gouache
paint. I find it to be perfect for my
sketchbook painting. For my studio works,
I use a Culver City company called Nova
Color. I use any kind of brushes really. In fact,
as of right now, I love using brushes from the
dollar store. I can use cheap brushes, but you
can never use low-quality paint.
Like most pieces, I don’t have a final line
drawing or colour comp. I start off with a
loose line indication to map out my
composition. Because of this method, I oftenend up painting over several days’ worth of
painting. Each painting will have layers upon
layers of mistakes; I painted the waterfall in
this picture six times!
I struggled so much with the design of the
waterfall, then one day I changed it to a circle
and it became my favourite piece. Now, you
might think I could save tons of time if I first
did a final line drawing. But I actually like
figuring out things as I go along.”WHIRLPOOL
“A piece that kept floating in my head
after I went to Niagara Falls. I couldn’t
get it out of my head the whole trip, so
I was eager to go home and paint it.”