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ArtTRUST - You are not only an artist, you seem to be an art historian?
Don - Not really, I just researched color back to the beginning, all the pigment histories I could find and which artists first used each pigment.
I added sculpturing because art itself used to be more closely related. When sculpturing was at a peak, so was painting but the paintings didn't survive. Only the descriptions of the paintings.
That's where I learned about pictura translucida. Mosaic art included calcined elements so I included them.
ArtTRUST - Which do you enjoy most, teaching or painting?
Don - Painting for sure! I have to teach this new way of painting because it is not being done in schools.
ArtTRUST - You seem to use all mediums equally well, which do you prefer?
Don - Acrylics are my first choice because of their ease in building a picture fast and the permanence of acrylics. Water color is the most basic technique and the one all artists should learn first.
ArtTRUST - You advocate painting on location, does that make your work more spontaneous?
Don - My goal was to learn from nature, to be able to paint anything in front of me accurately. When I say accurately, I give myself leeway to have a center of interest by keeping the details localized.
ArtTRUST - Are you the only student of pictura translucida?
Don - As far as I know. There isn't much written on the subject. At one time it was considered the most beautiful of all painting. I can see why, it is the most difficult style to paint in requiring the most thought.
ArtTRUST - You are a very prolific painter, how many paintings have you done in the last twenty years?
Don - I painted #1 in 1979, Acrylic, "Canoe Club" in Lahaina Maui and #842 in 1999, Acrylic, "4500" Poli Poli Maui
ArtTRUST - What is so different about your Real Color Wheel?
Don - It's a different way to mix colors using the new transparent colors that make neutral darks instead of using black pigment. Also the basic colors have different dark qualities, yellow goes to brown as does red.
This is the way the crystal elements darken. With the RCW, Yellows, Naples Yellow, Yellow Oxide, and Burnt Umber are on the same path to neutral dark. Orange goes through Burnt Senna, Cyan darkens to Ultramarine Blue like the sky.
The RGB color wheel takes all colors to black, by doing so Cyan turns greenish and is unusable and Yellow turns into a green shade before it turns black. It makes a nice grass color but a bad flesh color.
The same thing happens in the YMCR color wheel. The RCW is an artists color wheel and can be use to mix pigments.
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