Daniel Sprick: What Works for Me

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At the age of 71, Colorado-based artist Daniel Sprick has devoted more than five decades to his work. Although he’s committed to continued growth, after so many brush miles, the artist has, of course, developed some regular practices and preferences. Here are a few of his thoughts on matters of method and materials. 

By Colleen Smith

On Patience

“I let paintings sit a year or two without even looking at them,” Sprick says. “I’ll finish a painting—or think it’s finished—and set it aside. I look at it a year later and see so many things I could change. I come back to it having forgotten how much work it was—like the pain of childbirth, mercifully forgotten. After so much time has passed, I’m willing to obliterate big areas I’ve worked on that I put a lot of time into, and I can start over and rebuild, as if the painting is new. Having a lot of time in between helps.”

On Brushes

“I use cheap brushes,” Sprick says. “Occasionally, I use a brush called a cat’s tongue. It comes to a point, so you can do fine work or a broad stroke with the same brush, even in the same stroke, so that’s handy.”

On Titles

“Sometimes a title can help sell a picture, but generally I don’t think titles are important,” the artist says. “I’ll be sitting with an art dealer, and I’ve got to come up with titles, titles, titles, and I haven’t thought about titles the whole time I’ve been painting. I usually don’t. Honestly, I change my titles all the time. It depends on my mood.” 

On Frames

Sprick has a strong preference for black frames. “The reason is that black accentuates the light in the picture,” he says. “Frames, in general, are a border to separate [the painting] from the rest of the visual world. That’s why I think frames are important. That’s why I like them. There’s a long tradition of framing art in really ornate, complicated frames, but I like frames that are relatively simple.”

On Color

A signature motif evident in Sprick’s work is the presence of pale yellow—a sulfuric color simultaneously uplifting and slightly sinister. “When I was first learning how to paint, my color was all chalky, and I couldn’t get good, rich colors,” Sprick says. Then, while studying at the University of Northern Colorado, a painting instructor gave him a tip. “Rod Goebel told me to ‘mix yellow into all your white,’ and I’ve been doing it ever since,” Sprick says. “Of all the colors on the palette, yellow is, at full saturation, the lightest value. It’s the brightest and closest to white—especially cadmium yellow pale. It maintains quite a bit of saturation, even with a lot of white mixed in. I like a glow, and white with yellow glows like no other color.” You’ll see this pale yellow glowing in his paintings of surreal skies, interior walls or a creamy leather couch, on skulls and skeletons, and dishes and draperies.

On Lighting

Recently, Sprick started working with new lighting in his studio. “I’ve got this theater spotlight,” he says. “The framing shutters can make the light crisp and linear or soft, so the cast shadows from objects are crisper.” He accomplishes chiaroscuro effects not only by adding highlights, but also by darkening portions of his paintings. He often fine-tunes his paintings by altering the lighting to emphasize, for example, the glint off a curved kitchen faucet or a starry point of sunshine seeping through tree leaves. “In our dualistic framework, light can’t be understood without shadows,” Sprick observes.

On Pushing Beyond Realism

Sprick works in a realistic style, but he isn’t content to capture just what may be observed. “I want to generate a world beyond what really exists,” he says and explains one of the fundamental techniques he uses to take his portraits to this higher plain. “There’s something I do that photos do not,” he says. “I lose every possible edge. I make every edge disappear if I possibly can, so that the remaining ones are really quite strong.” 

A Collection of Paintings

To learn more about Daniel Sprick’s working methods, his portraiture and figurative work, in particular, read the full-length article, by Colleen Smith, in the November/December 2024 issue of Artists Magazine. Here’s a bonus selection of additional works, in a variety of subject matter, that do not appear in the article.

About the Artist

Meet the Artist

Denver-based artist Daniel Sprick was born in 1953, in Little Rock, Ark., and has lived in Colorado on and off since the age of five. The artist has studied at the Ramon Froman School of Art, in Cloudcroft, N.M., and the National Academy of Design, in New York City; and holds an Associate of Art degree from Mesa College, Grand Junction, Colo., and a B.A. from the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley. His work in multiple subjects has been featured in many shows, including solo exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum, in 2014; the Gerald Peters Gallery, in New York City, in 2016; and—most recently—at The Madden Museum of Art earlier this year. Sprick’s work is part of numerous private and public collections; among them are the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.; the Hunter Museum of Art, in Chattanooga, Tenn.; and the Denver Art Museum.