After all of that — the years of thinking, the research, the composition, the drawing, the long months of layering — there is one last stage, and it requires patience of a different kind. I glaze. Using a Damar glaze, I work carefully over the surface of the painting,...

Now comes the stage that drives me mad. Layering is the heart of how I paint, and it is slow, deliberate work. I begin with very thin paint — almost a wash — and I don't touch detail at all. Not yet. I'm only interested in tone. I work from the darkest shadows first,...

Once I have my reference, the drawing begins. I usually work in charcoal, fixing it carefully so it doesn't bleed into the paint layers that follow. But sometimes I reach for a pastel pencil called sanguine - derived from the Latin word that means blood. There is...

The model is never an afterthought. I choose who I work with carefully, because the right person has to carry the emotional thread that has been running through the painting in my mind, sometimes for years. When I'm ready, I spend a whole day with my model — taking...

There is a moment, early in every painting, where I do something that might seem a little mathematical for an emotional painter: . On a blank canvas, I map out the Pythagoras division of the rectangle to find the sweet spots. precise lines, carefully drawn. Where...

A painting begins long before there is any paint. For me, the real work happens in the quiet. In the weeks, months, sometimes years before I ever stand in front of a canvas. I am an emotional painter. I paint what I feel. And feelings, as anyone knows, cannot be...