How I Work - 1
I first spend time coming up with ideas. My ideas come from looking at other art, especially old masters, both painters and graphic artists, from looking at nature, reading, and mostly from my own Imagination. Drawing on these things I do sketches like these here which are the seeds of my paintings. The sketches below were done in my sketchbook and were the first steps of some of the paintings you see on my web site.
Next I enlarge the rough sketch and add detail as seen below. If necessary I do research to find reference material. For The New Guy, seen below, I used both the Web and the library to find pictures of Mariachi clothing, drums, violins, and day of the dead imagery, among other things. I also found reference material in my own art book collection.
Sometimes I do one or two or several color studies. I do these if I'm very uncertain about the colors and/or the values in the painting. These studies are small; 8 x 10 inches at the largest. I can change colors and values in these in seconds whereas in a final painting it could take hours or days to make such changes. To the right is one of 2 color studies I did for Return of the Ark. When I've worked out enough of the uncertainties in the drawing and color sketches if i do them, I'm ready to start work on the final painting. Below are the steps I took in doing The Moonlighter.

The first step of the painting is to transfer the drawing to my hardboard painting surface with carbon paper

 I work in acrylic. I apply the first layers of paint transparently so I can still see the drawing. For more about materials click here Gradually, I build up layers of paint. I continue to refine the shapes as I work

You can see in the tree trunk of this stage that I have begun to work "light out of dark" - that is; painting with light opaque paint over the darker areas In this stage, I've continued to work light out of dark in the foliage. This gives the shapes much more volume I smooth out rough areas and conversely add texture where I want it -e.g. grass, fur. I decided a crescent moon would look better so I repainted the moon and sky. Finished!
How I Work - 2
The Order of Things

In the example above, The Moonlighter, I painted everywhere at once, building the whole painting up gradually. Sometimes, as in this example, Salsa Crabs, there are steps to the painting that have to be done in a certain order. Here I first painted the background, which were comprised of the gradations of the sky, the water and the beach.

Next I painted the white lines which indicated the waves meeting the beach. Then I positioned the drawing of my main subject matter, the crabs, where I wanted it and taped one side down.
I put the transfer paper underneath and traced the drawing down.
Then I painted the crabs in. Later I painted some clouds and trees. The reason for following these steps and the point of this example, is that to paint the gradations of the water and the beach around the crabs would have been extremely difficult and tedious. Painting the crabs on top of these gradations was much easier.
Drawing
The final drawing that I transfer to the painting surface, such as the one seen above for The New Guy, is the most difficult part of the whole painting process. Unlike the long hours of painting when I often listen to books on tape or the radio, this stage of the process requires my full attention.
I make many adjustments to the placement of the various elements in the composition. Sometimes if the perspective is tricky, it is difficult to draw without reference. I made the model at right to help me draw the foreshortening of the figures for a painting I am presently working on.
I also made a clay model for the
man's head in the lower left corner
of Shooting Star and the figures in
Money Fields.
How I Work - 3
The example below shows in detail the steps I took for a more complicated and difficult painting: After Hours.
1. This painting began with a pen and ink drawing I did shortly after graduating from high school more than 20 years ago. I rediscovered it in my files and decided it might make a good painting.
2. To see if it really would make a good painting I did this sketch that included the background. I decided that the setting for the skier would be Devil's Castle, an area at Alta, in Utah, and I used the sketch to figure out the composition. First I drew with a pencil and then went over it with pen. Before drawing I decided that I would try having the main light source coming from the lower right. This is called bottom lighting and it adds a theatrical and dramatic effect. The original pen and ink drawing above used the more typical top lighting. Since I liked what I saw in the sketch, I decided to go forward and do the painting.
3. For reasons mentioned above I felt it would be necessary to do this small 4x7 color study for this painting.
Originally I painted the sky with a blue gradation, similar to Babe in the Woods (click here to see Babe in the Woods) but didn't like it so I changed it to flat black. Most importantly I determined which colors to use for the snow. I wasn't able to visualize the colors of the snow under these lighting conditions clearly without this sketch. Having chosen these colors I was able to pre-mix the colors for the snow in the painting which was very helpful. I had planned to have the main light source come from the lower right and planned it would be warm - tones of yellow or orange - and that there would be a secondary light source from the moon that would be cool. This secondary light source coming from behind is called "rim lighting" and is frequently used in cinematography.
4. Most of my paintings, including this one, involve a trip to the library for reference. I used many editions of Powder magazine for references of snow flying up from the skier.
5. Next I photocopied the color study up to the final size of the painting: 18" x 24". I photocopied onto
11" x 17" sheets which I then taped together.
6. I also photocopied a photo of Devil's Castle that I took from the Sugarloaf chairlift in March 2005. This was a big snow year so the rocks were covered more than usual and there were nice shadows on the snow which I liked. These were then transferred down to my painting surface. I did three sizes so I could decide later which worked best.
7. I then enlarged the original pen and ink drawing with the photocopier in three slightly different sizes for comparison.
8. I began mixing the acrylic paint I would use for the final painting. I used a palette knife to mix the paint on the palette paper (lower left). The palette paper has a wax-like surface so the paint doesn't soak into it and it's easy to mix on. I used the color study as a reference to get the color I needed. To match the colors I held the palette knife with paint on it directly over the color study. Once I had the correct color I moved it into the sealable palette (upper right)
Here are the final colors for the snow in the painting. Other colors such as the red of the flowers and browns of the rocks didn't require pre-mixing and were put in other palettes. The sealable palette has an air tight lid not shown here. I worked from this palette and several others until I finished the painting a week and a half later. With an ammonia preservate, paints remain usable for two months or more in these palettes.
9. Next I transferred the line of the hill down onto my final painting surface - which is tempered hardboard painted with 3 layers of gesso. The gesso was rolled on with a sponge paint roller and then sanded. I also decided which size I liked best for the mountains in the background and transferred that down using graphite transfer paper.
10. The first thing I painted was the sky. Then I had black and white on the painting which gave me good reference for the values (lights and darks) for the rest of the painting. Next I started painting the rocks of the mountain. I decided to move the hill down about half an inch which is why you see 2 lines there in this picture.
11. I moved from my table to my easel to paint the snow. Working at the easel allowed me to stand back and get a broader perspective.
I painted with my pre-mixed paints shown above using my color study as reference. I used a long handled bristle brush and stood back while I painted. Later I decided that the hill looked too much like a round ball so I straightened out the contour a little.
12. I decided which size of skeleton to use and where exactly I wanted to place it. I taped the photo copy down on the right, put the graphite transfer paper underneath the photo copy and traced over the lines with a hard (5H) pencil. I was back at the table for this step.
I find this brand of transfer paper works very well. It is produced by Loew-Cornell. It creates dark lines that erase easily. It also comes in white which is useful when transferring a drawing to a dark surface.
13. I began painting the skeleton.
I was basically just drawing with black paint while imagining a light coming from the lower right.
14. I continued painting the skeleton, adding the lights and the red wreath and ribbons. I taped my drawing to the painting as reference for the flowers.
15. I taped tracing paper over the painting to work on the ski tracks. I used ski photos as reference for the tracks including Howie Garber's "Wish You Were Here" - a beautiful card seen to the left which shows ski tracks coming down Cardiac Bowl in the Wasatch Mountains.
16. I began painting the ski track and the cloud of snow thrown up by the skis. Normally I would have painted the cloud of snow first and then painted the skeleton on top of it but I wasn't sure of the direction and shape of the cloud before I the skeleton was drawn. Afterwards I painted in the trees and more detail on the mountain and rocks.
17. I wasn't happy with the ski tracks; they didn't seem to be at the correct angle to fit with the contour of the hill. I contemplated this and re-drew them. The old drawing is on the left; the new drawing is on the right.
Then I completely painted out the old tracks (left), transfered down the new drawing, and then painted the new tracks with improved geometry (right). Without having the pre-mixed paints it would have been almost impossible to paint out the old tracks because of the difficulty of matching the colors because acrylics dry darker and are a slightly different color than when they are wet.
With pre-mixed paints it was much easier. Note: The color difference in the photos above is due to different lighting conditions under which they were taken. The colors were actually the same in the painting, only the shape of the tracks were changed.
18. I returned to the cloud of snow to add more detail. Before I began
I painted over the skeleton and his poles with masking fluid so that I could paint the cloud freely without having to worry about losing any of my prior work on the skeleton. The masking fluid goes on like paint and then dries quickly. Although I rarely use masking fluid this particular paintings presented its own special technical challenges.
19. I decided I wanted to paint the shadow of the skeleton on the cloud more carefully and I wasn't sure how it would look so I set up this skeleton in my studio with a spotlight to see the shadows.
20. From this set-up I did a quick pencil sketch and used it for reference to finish painting the shadows on the snow cloud.
21. Here I'm peeling off the masking fluid. It comes off more easily than rubber cement. However, it leaves some jagged edges that had to be cleaned up a little with paint and brush. To the left you can faintly
see one of the ski poles before the masking fluid has been removed.
22. I worked some more on the tracks adjusting the values while continuing to use various photos for reference.
23. The only thing that bothered me in the original drawing was the lower of the two ribbons. I decided it didn't work any better in the painting and to re-do it. I redrew it on paper, painted it out on the painting, transfered the drawing down, and re-painted it. I changed the lighting on both of the ribbons as well. Again, it was only because I had pre-mixed paints that I was able to make this change easily.
24. After this I did minor touch-ups on the whole painting, signed it, varnished it with an air gun, and voila! "After Hours" was finished. : )