I wrote a poem about my favorite part of the painting process - the underpainting. So full of possibilities and promise. The bones of the painting. If the underpainting doesn’t excite me, the final painting won’t either. For me, they are irrevocably connected. Sometimes I love the underpainting so much, I want to stop there. Then it becomes all about pushing past the fear of ruining this lovely underpainting, and needing to get out of my comfort zone. Because even though I sometimes do stop there and let it be a monochrome painting (if that’s what it really wants to be), I’ll never know what might have been, if I stop at the underpainting. 

The Underpainting

Softly, like a memory 

The ghost of an image

Is coaxed from blank canvas

Light and shadow create form

Wooden handle tipped with bristle

Moves pigment mixed with oil

Across the canvas, and my heart

Laying the foundation

The birth of a painting

                                      ~Kathleen Coy