Artist, Elizabeth Peyton: This is a watercolor of an artist named Nick Ralph. I made it in Long Island. I invited Nick to come and visit me for three or four days; and I kind of followed him around, painting and drawing him, taking photographs of him, for the entire time, and he was very patient. And so that's a picture of him having lunch.
I'm very interested in seeing people who do things that that I think are so great, do things that are really quite normal, like have lunch, or look at themselves in a mirror, or, you know, walk down the street.
This picture is different from a lot of other work that I make, first of all 'cause it's a watercolor; I don't make watercolors so often. I find them very difficult, and usually just manage a couple a year. And this is also different because it's large/ so it gives me a lot of freedom with the movement of the brush strokes and everything like that.