Centerfold, May 2006, Part 2

A painter I correspond with, Ron Zito, wrote to me to tell me the last entry I wrote on this painting was like "paintus interruptus." "To be continued. Will the beautiful Teri Peterson emerge unscathed (and unclothed) from the canvas?" Sorry that she's not out yet. We've got a few more layers to go before we can see her.

Today I decide to work on the debris and the dirt around the centerfold. I try to work back to front. I start with Gamblin Portland Grey Light. The Portland Greys are perfectly neutral; I want something warmer, so I add in Burnt Umber and Galkyd SD until I get a color almost exactly like chocolate ice cream. Speaking of chocolate ice cream, the very best I've ever had is Turkey Hill Philadelphia Style Chocolate ice cream. The list of the best things in life now stands thusly:

• Oral sex
• A good, ripe avocado
• Turkey Hill Philadelphia Style Chocolate ice cream

Once I've got the color I want, I grab one of my Ugly Brushes. I've been painting seriously for a little over twenty years and I'm not sure that I've ever thrown a brush away. I've been partial for the past few years to Robert Simmons brushes, mainly because they're cheap and hold together despite the abuse I put my brushes through. But I have all kinds, from Winsor & Newton watercolor brushes to really crappy Chinese ink brushes. My main problem is I commit what Tom Robbins calls the cardinal sin of painters: I don't clean my brushes. Any brushes which cannot be cleaned go into my pile of Ugly Brushes. Recently I tried to salvage a bunch of Ugly Brushes using Lestoil; a good soak in Lestoil did remove the old paint but turned the hairs brittle and black and totally destroyed whatever spring was left. Now those are Ugly Brushes!

Using an Ugly Brush I scumble in some chocolate paint over the Van Dyke Brown of the dirt underpainting. I'm trying to be random but it turns out being random is really hard for me. I do some blending here and there so it all doesn't look so brushlike and I try to leave some untouched Van Dyke where shadows would fall from the leaves and sticks.

Next I add more Portland Grey Light into the mixture to make a slightly warm, ashy grey. If you ever really look at old leaves and sticks and dirt, it's all pretty much the same dull grey color, unless it's wet. I get near that grey and paint in some small sticks, leaf bits, and general crud all around. I also paint in the two rocks on the right with a very thin layer of the same grey.

When that's done I do something I don't usually do: While the paint is wet, I go back in with a brush handle and scrape some lines into the bits to give them some texture.

Enough for now.