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Painting

Date: 1982

Painting

Painting. I do it every day. No time to wait for an emotion.

When I am working in oil, I begin by setting up my palette. I have many recipes for making colors. Here, for instance, are two recipes I use, one for making black and one for making white:

titanium white
yellow ochre
ultramarine blue
raw umber

With clean palette knife, pick up small amount of ultramarine blue and deposit it on clean area of palette. Clean palette knife, and with it pick up the same amount of raw umber, and mix the raw umber with the deposit of ultramarine blue until the mixture turns black. This is black.
Clean palette knife, and pick up small portion of ultramarine blue and deposit it on clean area of palette. Clean palette knife, and take small portion of raw umber and deposit it on palette up against the ultramarine blue. Clean palette knife, and repeat process with yellow ochre, laying it against the raw umber deposited on palette. Clean palette knife, and take a larger amount of titanium white and mix it with the ultramarine blue and raw umber and yellow ochre on the palette until the mixture is a gray white. This is white.

By this time, I am painting.

I stay with a painting until it is completed: it is like making love; you know when you have come to the end of it.

Benzene, Spring/summer Number 1982 Nos. 5/6 (Double Issue)
Published with black-and-white reproduction of  
George Washington Vermeer, 1974