It is interesting to me that extremely long hours in the studio translate to such a rhythm or being in the zone. I have always put in long hours in the studio but recently for an extended period of months, I have been working for 12-14 hours every day. Although it is physically tiring to stand on your feet and work this length of time, it is remarkable in what it produces. There is a complete integration between your abilities and the object of your attention. This experience has convinced me, in a tangible way, that rapid progress is only possible with such extreme investment of time. I know that Gregory Gillespie worked these hours nearly all his career and he was very fond of saying that, great art is always extreme, and it appears that part of getting to an extreme position is the amount of hours that you put in. I have been testing a new canvas which I am very excited about. I am using a hemp herringbone canvas. It is quite heavy and the texture is wonderful. It holds paint beautifully and allows for some very intriguing textural effects. I have also been restricting my palette considerably more than I ever have before. I am using now only a synthetic red, alizarine crimson, synthetic yellow, ultramarine blue, titanium white, mars black, and Prussian blue. I am finding that this gives a complete range of color and I have not felt the lack of any specific pigment. I have formulated a new medium with wax which is in a liquid form and it is unbelievable. It produces a satin sheen to the canvas paintings which I like very much. It dries hard within two days and working into it is truly amazing. I mixed up about quart of the medium which should last about a year. The problem is that I did not measure each component of it carefully, so when I need more, I will probably have to jigger the ingredients to find the right proportion of each. It is by far the finest medium that I have ever used for canvas work. I have stopped all new painting on panels. (Although I continue to rework many of the panels). I am enjoying the painting experience on the canvas so much that I may never go back to panels. I have been playing around with my continuing dialog with the old masters. Now instead of painting an old master painting copy and then painting one of my own images beside it on the same canvas, I am taking old master drawings and turning them into paintings. I have several Michelangelo and Leonardo drawings that I want to paint. It is very amusing and also instructive to see what effect appropriated contour drawings have on the final painted result. This fascination with acknowledged master works and the subsequent continuing dialog has been going on since undergraduate days, when I wanted to make a drawing of every work of art in the Janson, History of Art text.