I wish to thank both Lois Dodd for agreeing to the phone conversation and for her time and thoughtfulness with answering my questions and to share her experience and ideas with our readers. I would also like to thank Elizabeth O’Reilly for the many ways she helped make this possible. Larry Groff: Do you spend a lot of time looking and thinking about the subject before you start to paint? Lois Dodd: It's more about what I see when I'm walking around looking for something. Then after that it a matter of what size I want to work with and the proportion it will fit into. Then I try to isolate something that would make a good painting, a good subject. I look through my pile of gessoed panels that are different sizes and different proportions. They are all rectangles or squares and I always take a few of those when I go out so I have a variety of panels to choose from because that is the first decision. If you're looking at something you want to paint and it looks exciting, the lighting is good and then you have to decide what size what shape of a panel will it fit onto; you ask yourself, is it a horizontal thing or vertical or square. Those are the first choices. LG: How do you start a painting? Do you make studies or thumbnails first? Do you use a viewfinder of some sort? LOIS DODD: I don't really use a viewfinder but I can put my hands up to frame the view or something like that. I don't make thumbnail sketches, I'm more interested in starting right on the panel. I start with thinned out yellow paint and draw with the brush. So it's pretty minimal, general and not tight. You asked me if I scrape off, I don't use a scraper but I don't use heavy paint either I really paint rather thinly so we never get to the point where I can scrape. But if I don't like what I've done I can rub it off with a rag with turpentine and rub it all around and then I have a nice colored ground to work into that I can use.