Works on Paper

My favored medium is gouache on 100% cotton, rough textured watercolor paper. I feel that gouache is the long neglected Cinderella of art media. Gouache’s immediacy, its versatility as both a transparent and pasty pigment, the possibility re-dampening, absorbing and reworking the paint, give me the greatest freedom to experiment and discover color.

The choice of paper is equally important. I strive to use each papers qualities, its absorbency, texture and color rather than working against it. For years, I preferred hand made papers, created from banana, linen, tea etc. The naked paper had beauty and color, and provided a wonderful contrast to the painted area. My recent work is more like work on canvas, building up textured layers of paint, covering the entire surface and utilizing the paper’s rough grain to randomly scrape the paint from the brush.