Adding people to your paintings definitely makes them more narrative. I was painting in Hollenbeck part in East Los Angeles. A whole school of children was leaving school soon after I settled. Between comments like "Not bad" and "That's rad"(really?), most of the kids were fascinated by the fact that I added a "vendedor de paletas" in the background, a popsicle salesman. One kid paused for a bit and blurted "So how do you do it?" I immediately recognized a certain urgency I used to have regarding painting (I still do) so I put down the brushes for a minute and gave him some hints: can you see how things far away look more and more like the sky color? what color are the tree trunks, really? (very confused look after I said they are not really that brown and compared them to his shoes). If you mix yellow and blue, what do you get? When he started to show signs of saturation I felt my job was done. It is work kid. Forever. But it is fun work.
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