Colleen McAndrews Wood

My paintings are made on untreated wood, usually red oak.  I like to have the wood's grain show.  Once I have an idea for a painting, I usually draw it directly on the wood, using a pencil plus ruler or straight-edge.  I sometimes make a template out of an object, or out of paper, to get my image down on the wood ground.  I don't use any photo-process, or computer-generated images.  I've always liked to work with my hands.

I like the hours, spread over weeks and months, that it takes to make a painting.  I like the steps, the slow build of the surface.  I want my paintings to appear substantial, layered and colorful.

I get ideas from every-day patterns I see in daily life, also classic patterns, some thousands of years old.  It's interesting to me that a pattern seen on an ancient mosaic turns up hundreds of years later in someone's patchwork quilt.   It makes me feel part of a long tradition.

I sometimes think of my paintings as 'windows.'  I hope you can see many and overlapping colors and images in them, the illusion of color, light, and movement.