Blind Head Study--Green, 24" x 18", oil on paper, 1984. Artist's collection.

I executed this painting in its entirety while blindfolded. Working with a blindfold while painting required a much greater amount of set up than the drawings. I pre-mixed the colors of oil paint and placed each color in its own bowl. I placed the bowls within arm's reach of the easel and committed their order to memory. I placed a brush next to each bowl to be used for applying that color exclusively.

In this composition I used four colors of paint--burnt umber for the outline of the figure, pale red-violet for the highlighted areas of the figure, blue for the shadows of the figure, and green for the background. I painted for about half and hour, which is a long and unsettling length of time for a perfectly sighted person to perform a dexterous task completely blinded. I took the blindfold off after I felt certain I had rendered the figure and background effectively. I found the resulting image to be (ironically) like nothing I have ever seen.