PART III: WOGRIN INTERVIEW
My pallette is't all that different. I don't carry a lot
of colors. I use two blues--cobalt and ultramarine;
viridian; alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow pale, cadmium
red, yellow ochre, and white and some black. Those colors
enable me to match just about anything I want to match.
Color is a fascinating thing. Sometimes I get in a terrible
rut; and I shouldn't, but you do. And I have gotten through
periods with lots of peaks all the same color, but I try to
get away from that. The mood of the painting, the mood of
the area at the time is very important.
When I go outside, I find I am bothered by uncontrolled
things--bugs, wind, dust. I can be there for a little bit
and do my quick sketches, but I cannot sit there and be a
plein-air painter. I just don't have the concentration
there. So I take lots and lots of quick sketches, pencil
work and photography--not of 'the' subject, but I use photos
to say, "What did this rock look like? What did that look
like?" So that gives me the detail I am after. Then I can
interpret it and put into the painting what I want. Each man
has to find his own road, and mine is very comfortable,
especially when it's zero outside.
I do a lot of big paintings, eight foot, ten foot. I've had
nice commissions and have paintings at Keystone Ski Area and
Park Meadows Mall, at corporate headquarters. Anschutz has a
large painting of mine. I have been very fortunate in doing
that. And I can do big paintings in the studio very easily
because the studio is good size
Field Studies
The quickly-done field study is a fine thing because all the
study does is a question, "What happens if?" And so you go
to see what happens if I do this or that.
And some of them end up to be blind alleys that go nowhere; you learn nothing except you won't do that again. You're putting a foundation under yourself; that's really what you're accomplishing. And I think I have done that.
Sketches
I always do a sketch, either a pencil sketch or a light
color sketch of the subject, to get the layout for a
painting. Once I am done with that, then I will refine that
and put it to canvas.
I
have done a tremendous number of large paintings, and for
those I go to a graph form and pencil in the sketch on the
graph form and then go over that with a light color wash to
bring it forward. After I get past that point, when I know I
have the color and feeling of the painting that I want to
achieve, then I'll go right ahead and work with a palette
knife and then refine that with brushes.
The
last little detail can be just one poke of the brush,
loosely done but it conveys exactly what the bush, the
personality of the tree, what the concept of it is. That is
what you are really after, the perfection of the
painting.
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