Racine Uzes

My work is in oil on linen canvas. As it is slow to dry, I work on three or four paintings at a time. I am often asked how long they take. I can only say 4 to 6 months working one or two days a week. I have a limited palette of 6 colors, two reds, two blues and two yellows, plus white.

For reference I use wood engravings and old paintings, photographs of historic cities. Most I find online, in the past I spent a lot of time in libraries.

The borders are mostly based on “white vine” illuminations typical of 15th century Florence. I first used these when working on the borders of “Sleeping Beauty”.