omitting superfluous
detail. Then I took up
my pastels. I painted
with a jewelry maker’s
concentration along
the lines where the
image split, allowing
some excess to overlap
slightly under the
rabbets to prevent
even a sliver of raw
paper from interrupt-
ing the eye’s progress.
I was now ready to paint a
large-scale version of Riotous Rooftop,
but I was also ready for a break.
I decided to put off the project
until after my return from an art
tour of Kansas City’s galleries and
private collections.
Between art sites on the tour,
I spotted an abandoned train car on a
side track in the industrial area. I had
a new subject! Riotous Rooftop would
have to wait a little longer.Trouble Shooting
This is how Fenced In (above) actually
became my first multipaneled work.
Again, the first step was to divide the
subject matter into three sections.Not knowing what challenges this
new format might present, I began
with a small preliminary study. The
first question I faced was where to
make the divisions. I wanted a strate-
gic segmentation: no panel complete
in itself but all three pieces part of an
organic whole. In this, I was governed
primarily by aesthetic considerations,
yet not unaware of the marketplace.
I could already hear a customer
asking: Would you sell this piece sepa-
rately? I decided to cut right through
the focal point—the “monster’s” head
and torso—and let the viewer’s eye
rejoin the outer thirds to the center.
The challenge was to ensure a
smooth visual transition. Normally,
I wouldn’t worry too much about
losing a fraction of a painting under
the inside edge of the frame, or
rabbet. But with the focal point
now straddling two frames, even a
fractional loss could result in a ruin-
ous discontinuity. The fit had to be
perfect. For reference points, I drew
vertical lines to mark the crucial
rabbet edges and horizontal lines to
keep the composition in alignment.
Working from the photo clipped
to my easel, I sketched an outline,
Fenced In (23x63) features a variable distance instead of a fixed distance
(seen in the sketches, right) and the painting in process (right, below).I slightly shifted the name on the
side of the car so my cuts would go
through the letters instead of between
them. I wanted not only to avoid a
breakup into what would appear to be
separate words—Tex / as / So / uth—
but also to reinforce the idea of inter-
connectedness, each section
an integral part of the whole.
Applying the lessons I had learned
from the study for Riotous Rooftop,
I did my sketching-in with the sheets
laid side by side, in pairs. The diagonal
of the train car roof required some
finessing. To reconnect an image split
between frames, the eye must travel
the width of the frame edges, plusArtistsNetwork.com 13