After determining what she wants the effect of a particular work to be – should it dramatize the heaviness of a masonry wall, evoke the breathtaking sweep of a seaside dune, or perhaps suggest the shimmering quality of the air around a standing stone she selects reference photos from her files of thousands of her own shots. She first makes a preliminary, full size sketch to test the basic idea, and then makes a detailed technical drawing on tracing paper with all corrections for perspective and distance in place. Next she traces this drawing onto watercolor paper using her large light table and then soaks that paper in a tub of water and stretches onto a foundation board, where she staples it in place.

When the paper is completely dry and taut, she edges the work completely with masking tape, and at this time may also mask out scattered areas that she wishes to keep free of paint. Sometimes using just one pigment for an entire painting and sometimes with as many as four, she begins each work by applying successive layers of very dilute, transparent, wet-in-wet washes with a wide brush, working from light to dark at arm’s length. Typically she will then do a certain amount of dry-in-wet and wet-in-dry brushwork, and then finish with dry brushwork done with a magnifying lamp to achieve crispness and detail. This sequenced handling of wet and dry media slowly builds the appearance of vibrating mutability, the sense of immanence that is central to her work.

This complete process takes typically from three to fifteen full days depending on the size of the work and the amount of detail. All Dianne’s paintings are done with museum-quality materials: transparent, highly light-fast watercolor paints; sable, and occasionally nylon, brushes; 140# mold-made, cold press, Arches cotton paper. All paintings are matted with acid-free, 100% cotton-rag, mounted on archival quality board, and professionally framed in silver-gilt wood.