What’s an underpainting you ask? In my work, the underpainting is where I express myself and warm up when beginning a painting. It’s often done with big bold words that express how I’m feeling, mark making, journaling, color exploration and more.

When I look at other artists work, I wonder, what secrets lie underneath that masterpiece they have created…is there nothing underneath but a blank white space, did they take notes while on a phone call?, could there be an entire other painting underneath? I will never know, but I love to think about it.

Often in my work you can find small bits of the underpainting showing through, other times, it just disappears into the back of the painting never to be seen again. Either way, you can know there is alway something hiding behind my final pieces.

In this piece, the underpainting start with color exploration, you can see bits of it showing through, then a layer of white and some marks scratched into the paint before lots of big bold words positive were added. This piece was created just shortly after I finished my last cancer treatment and I was feeling these words.

Once the underpainting is done, the background colors are applied (they often change later) and the sketch is drawn out so the painting can begin transforming itself.