Daring Methods, Daring Paintings

The word "risk" doesn't fully define the painting process of Brooks Anderson, but it does provide insight into what makes his work so moving. At every stage during the creation of a painting Anderson takes chances: he hangs over precipices to get the right vantage point; he mixes oil pastel and oil paint together; he works on canvases of intimidating size. And how does he perceive himself? "Less as a risk-taker and more of a conductor," he says. "The brush is my baton."

Although Anderson prefers to paint in the sanctuary of the studio?where he doesn't have to "fight with the elements"?he frequently travels along the West Coast to photograph and sketch on-site. "A lot of my views come from places where I'm holding onto a limb and photographing over a cliff," he says. "These are very precipitous areas, and they capture the unseen and unknown; I'm always on a search for the totemic. For me, it makes it more of an homage to paint a view nobody knows about. For example, Epiphany developed from a photograph I took while hanging on a limb 100 feet above the ocean. I snapped the picture and breathed 'thank you.'"

A final drawing may arise from one photograph or from a composite of many. The artist first outlines the major forms using large sticks of Sennelier and Holbein oil pastel. Preferring an exciting beginning, as opposed to the gray of graphite, Anderson often sketches in red. "The reds shine through my finished work quite a bit, adding a shock of color that makes the paintings pop," he says. He works on a grayish-toned canvas, a neutral base he considers a solid middle-value foundation. When he wants an "eggshell-smooth" canvas?his preference for paintings with fewer layers?he will apply a ground of 1/3 matte medium mixed into 2/3 gesso, which he brushes on and allows to dry. Then the artist sprays the surface with water and sands it, a procedure he repeats three times.

For Anderson, the first layers are the most important, because they form a base for everything that follows. "I block in pure colors using unmixed oil pastel," he says. "I then layer transparent oil paint combined with a lot of medium. It starts out like a Gauguin as I lock in pure color, but it ends up as a Brooks Anderson." To a combination of 1/4 cup of linseed oil and 1/4 cup of odorless turpentine, Anderson adds 2 tablespoons of Liquin to speed up the drying time and yield a "nice, beefy" coat of paint. If he is particularly eager to get painting the next day, he will mix the paint with Liquin alone.

Transparency is the key to the brilliant color in Anderson's paintings. As he explains his layering process in painting a sky, a critical component of his landscapes, "Over a yellow base of oil pastel I might paint the lightest rose color, allowing the undercolor to show through in pure Impressionist technique. When I have to mix oil pastels with oil paints, I do it on the palette, never on the canvas, because that can make the color muddy. The sky is always completed first, both for painterly and for practical reasons. The sky dictates the rest of the luminosity and chroma of the painting. These will often be painted in one shot to ensure a cohesive, dramatic sky. I can't paint water unless I have the sky that it reflects. I also work on the sky first because I don't like to paint with my hand resting on wet colors from the lower part of the painting." From this point on, Anderson works over the entire canvas, "orchestrating the various colors," as he puts it.

In Epiphany, a work that reflects the artist's interest in the constant movement of the ocean, Anderson finished the sky and then completed the rocks. "I saved the water for last because I love painting water," he says. "It's the dessert of the painting meal. First I applied a base of olive greens and bluish greens where the water was deeper, taking my time to get the colors exact. I let it dry until it became tacky and then painted the various whites over the top. The lower left has more bluish versions of foam because it's deeper water. Where the swell rises and there is more gnashing foam, I've added ochre. The upper portions of the foam are glazed with Indian yellow."

The artist employs a standard palette, although he relies upon no particular brand and prefers to work with synthetic brushes of various brands and sizes. Along the left-hand edge of his 12"-x-24" glass palette he lines up Indian yellow, Hansa yellow, cadmium red light, permanent rose, alizarin crimson, Indian red (instead of burnt sienna), raw sienna, burnt umber, and magenta. Along the top of the palette are phthalocyanine yellow green, permanent green light, phthalocyanine green, cobalt turquoise, cerulean blue, French ultramarine blue, and ivory black. He supplements his palette with Schminke cold grey and bluish grey 2.

Purples and greens frequent the artist's paintings because he finds the combination peaceful. Often he develops lush greens by adding Hansa or Indian yellow to a deep phthalocyanine green, and he varies the purples from bluish to reddish. On the final layer he will achieve a strong pop of color with burnt sienna. "It's this sort of wham of color that makes people gasp," he says. "On Terra Australus, No. 1 the reddish line above the horizon works against the yellow to create tension. This sort of zinger is what separates the work from the landscape and propels it into the realm of painting."

Anderson's typical painting day is four to five hours long, and a single, larger painting will often require three weeks of labor. These larger paintings are his status quo. "A small painting is like looking out a window," he observes, "while a large painting has an overwhelming presence. It allows me to stand up and be very physical with the paint." Beyond stretching his heavy Fredrix canvas, the artist finds that working large incurs no particular challenges. And because he works with thin layers, he says that a large painting does not require much more paint than a small painting. Christopher Willard is a painter, color theorist, and freelance writer who has contributed to American Artist and its quarterlies for more than seven years.