Hon. William M. Marutani

[Garth Herrick]

I thought this one would never get noticed. Yet another Judge!? I go away for several hours and WOW! My email suggested just one response. Thanks, let me attempt to respond in kind, this is more than I expected.

Ilaria: Thanks, I vaguely remember my grandmother suggesting this color scheme when I was about five years old and using Crayola crayons. Maybe this has subliminally stuck with me these past forty-one years, I don't know? In reality Judge Marutani was sitting in front of windows with white venetian blinds; not very interesting I thought.

Linda: Thanks, I actually was daunted by those hands. They sat unfinished for a long time. Finally I just bit the bullet and everything seemed to pull together in a few hours like magic. The cast shadow to the left of the wristwatch is one I made up to accomodate the puffy robe sleeves. The choice of the interlaced fingers gesture was very spontaneous. It was a quick fleeting gesture caught in a digital snapshot. It just felt right.

Michele: WOW Thanks!

Mike: Thanks! The seeming natural quality to the cast shadows are due to the fact that they are mostly derived from a single photo with all of this information taken early on a December morning with a low raking sun. When I came back to having him sit the following March, it was impossible to acheive this lighting effect again.

Patricia: Thanks, (and of course you will, why not!).

Jimmy: Thaaaaaaaannnnks! Like I said to Linda above, I guess I was just lucky to get a great reference photo with this magical lighting.

Allan: Thanks, and I think you have a good point! It seemed much more natural and intuitive to paint a living Judge for once. I like your interpretation of the hands' energy. I sensed energy in them too, when I saw them in action. I don't know why I settled on this color scheme, but originally it was quite a bit more intense, if not fluorescent. It needed a lot of toning down, and these earth colors seemed much more livable. I don't yet know precisely where this will hang in City Hall (generally I need to know this, but here no one could tell me), so the color scheme is not particularly going to relate to other paintings, except they almost certainly all will have a lot of black as a theme!

Elizabeth: Thanks, like I just said, this color scheme went though some evolution along the way.

Chris: Thanks. Thanks! The digital reference picture on a December morning was too cool in overall color effect for my taste, so I manually interpolated the colors to warm them up.

Jane: Thanks! Just too much! I am more afraid of color than you may think, but in this case I could discern plenty of distinction in colors from the reference from the beginning, so this just naturally fell into place for me.

Josef: Thanks! Being in the presence of this Judge, I could really sense the warmth of his personality.

Best to you all,

Garth