Collection Story

It was 3 AM on Block Island over Fourth of July weekend, 2021.

As 3 AM became 4 AM, I watched the night sky shift to inky blue. I made a cup of coffee, grabbed my canvas bag of gouache and rattling materials, and drove down to North Point to paint.

Geese honked and fog horns called into the rich blue morning. It started to rain as I painted in my car, listening to Ann Pattchet’s Bel Canto.

By 6 AM, I came home to find everyone sleeping. As I made a second cup of coffee, I noticed a wooden tray of limes on the kitchen. Gentle light came through the curtained windows, resting on this summer citrus and casting layers of shadow this way and that.

I was hooked.

Since July, I’ve set my alarm early a number of mornings each week to paint. It’s been a pleasure to get to know gouache so well - working with water-soluble materials during the summer feels much easier than oil as it’s something I can do with ease around my just-toddling daughter.

Gouache can be both transparent and opaque, and it dries immediately. These qualities have allowed me to create movement by gesturally adding layers of color in varying values. Practicing unsentimental decisiveness to lay down un-tentitive brush strokes.

Towards the end of the summer, I captured still lives in oil. It was such a pleasure to get back to the medium I turn to again and again.

Enjoy!