I stretch my own canvases and prefer linen, unprimed. Two coats of gesso with sanding on each dry coat. Bristle brushes, filberts give me the texture and quality of surface I like. I use no mediums, just turpentine. My palette consists of three yellows, yellow ochre pale, raw sienna and chrome yellow. The reds I use are venetian, burnt umber, burnt sienna and cadmium. I like oxide of chromium for green, all other greens are mixed. Ultramarine is the only blue I use. When painting I consider complements and mix them together on the palette, using a bit of a complement in each mixture. For example, I might make a purple using ultramarine and venetian red and add a bit of ochre to temper it. If I use a yellow I add a little purple to temper that color. I never use black but mix it using several dark colors together. I like to paint wet in wet to keep the painting "soupy".

I usually start a painting with a house painting brush, covering up the white of the canvas and laying in dark and light shapes. Then come some middle tones. I think in tone at first and color later. I do a lot of scraping and wiping in the beginning-at this point it's all rather abstract.

I don't know how many ways there are of working but what I've found, and it took some time, is perhaps peculiar to me. The most exciting thing is a blank white canvas or piece of paper--anything can happen. This is why I've long ago gotten away from scripts and manuscripts. I'm not really an illustrator. It's probably my education in German Abstract Expressionism where whatever happens on a piece of art happens all the time. There is no real beginning and no end, there is just a time to abandon. I honestly never know what the "finish" will look like. I've said this before so bear with me here. The work and I have a "conversation". There are times it listens to me and times I must listen to it. As long as it's a "we" process there are no dull bits. There are impasses where I have to put it aside for a while but that's not boredom. Boredom can just be another word for anger. For almost 30 years I have written my own comics, and the writing is done along with the drawing, not beforehand. It's the same with painting. The narrative, which is often ambiguous, evolves with time. If it does indeed ever get dull then it is finished.

I always use titanium white because of it's opaqueness and covering ability. It doesn't matter which white you use, mixing white with any primary color will give you a pasty pastel. You have to mix the colors before adding white. Also lack of pastiness depends on which colors are next to each other.

...Howard Pyle advised his students, "Put light colors next to light colors and dark colors next to darks, then where you want the viewer to descend, put dark next to light." This is a good rule of thumb.