“My approach to oil painting is basically ‘freedom through limitation.’ When painting on location, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the infinite variation in color and value-but there’s safety in numbers. Basically I try to reduce everything to fives: five degrees of value, color saturation, focus (softness or sharpness of edges), etc. I also limit the number of colors on my palette to five or six pure pigments-no black or earth colors. It’s amazing how much freedom you can have with color if you sort your values correctly.”
