  THE SUN ROOM, 2001 By Tom Root, alkyd on board, 24” x 24” Collection of the artist This painting of my wife and daughter is one of many I did at the time in alkyd color (Winsor & Newton) on Davey Board (an archival cardboard used for bookbinding). I worked out the composition in line and tone using charcoal and white chalk and then sealed the board with a few coats of spray Crystal Clear, sanding in between coats with extra fine sandpaper to smooth where the drawing had roughed the surface. Then I laid in the large color masses—alkyds are very slippery for the first hour or so but set up nicely after that. I worked on the piece for a couple of weeks with many sittings. When finished I mounted the painting with PVA glue onto a shellacked birch plywood panel that was supported on the back with oak strips to prevent warping. This method was a result of my search for a way to combine drawing and painting more seamlessly. I had been looking admiringly at Vuillard’s temperas and Toulouse Lautrec’s oil-on-cardboard paintings. In my alkyd-on-board paintings I felt that I had come up with an interesting and technically sound method, but then decided to move on, for whatever reason. Other paintings on this site using this method are “Self-Portrait with Alice” and “Jesse,” which I believe is the only commissioned portrait that I painted in this way. |
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