18 Artists Magazine May 2020
Build TUTORIAL
THE FUN OF CONTRADICTORY CONTENT
I was walking in lower Manhattan
one weekend morning when I passed
a quiet construction site. On the
sidewalk stood a large trash container
filled with drywall remnants, but that
wasn’t all: A flash of brilliant orange
on top of the gypsum caught my eye.I approached the can and saw that it
was topped with champagne bottles
and pizza boxes. I couldn’t help but
smile at this unexpected contrast
as I imagined the spontaneous
celebration of the prior evening that
somehow ended up on this tranquilside street. I took a quick photo
and went on my way. Later, I made
a monoprint of the image, and Pizza
& Champagne is a variation on that
idea—a juxtaposition of informal and
formal, or you could say uptown and
downtown life.1
I sketched an outline of the composition with vine
charcoal on a canvas board. I wanted a high sight
line, helpful for depicting the pizza box’s printed top, and
I brought the objects in close. Cropping off some of the
pizza box on the right helped to re-create my view of the
unusual still life I saw on the street.2
I blocked in the local colors of the objects and
background and began painting with a limited palette of
titanium white, Mars yellow, ultramarine blue and raw umber.
I kept my palette neutral overall in order to accentuate the
orange label and deep green glass of the champagne bottle.
I left loose brushstrokes in the background and on the pizza
box to add an energetic note to the arrangement.3
Using cadmium orange and cadmium
yellow, I rendered the golden foil at the
top of the bottle and the lighter areas of
the label. The champagne fl ute on the right
required a mixture of grays, and I simplifi ed
the process of rendering the clear glass by
carefully placing highlights and refl ected light,
allowing the background color to comprise
the rest of the form. I applied the lights with
quick strokes of thick paint, using a palette
knife. I also indicated light on the left side of
the pizza box and its folded fl aps in order to
project that part of the box forward.