I start a painting with just marks on the blank white canvas, usually with charcoal. Then I overlay a few paint colors.  Nothing is preplanned and I do not work from sketches. Early on in the process of laying on colors in this painting the Yellow Door appeared.  At least it looked to me like a yellow door on the front of a house. Typically when a shape or color captures my attention in a painting as it is developing, I end up painting over it. I like to say “The part of a painting you like the most will be the part you paint over last”. In this painting however, the image of the yellow door persisted and although the tone of the yellow color changed the shape, size and placement did not. Everything around it changed a lot over the months I was working on the painting.  

W. K. Johnson