"Yellow Canoe" Painting

I am a self-taught artist who did not begin to draw or paint until I was an adult. I paint in oil on canvas or linen, but I often use vellum because it has a translucence that adds another layer of light to the surface. My method was born out of not knowing how to paint. I did not understand the temperature of color or how to use value. My method became about erasure, and ultimately I developed a repetitive process of putting on and wiping off paint. I also have not been able to complete a painting without going into it with some form of over-drawing which seems to hold the image together for me viscerally. This process often imparts a luminous quality to the surface and intensifies subtleties and the figures then seem to exist as after-images or in reflected light. This process of painting is very satisfying for me because the physical act of wiping off layer upon layer of impressions helps me to get past preconceived assumptions and attitudes in order to reach for something that may only be seen indirectly, something that is, I think, more true because it is unspoken.