Leslie
Allen

The Painting Process

Leslie's paintings start with drawing. Years of advanced anatomy and figure study gave her a confident hand, and that confidence is what drives her mark-making today: bold, fast and sure, even when the painting is fully abstract. She calls it objective abstraction, where every mark still comes from looking hard at something real. She works mostly in oil, often on cradled canvas, building colour in vibrant layers and letting gesture carry the energy. Her studio itself feeds the work. The depth and geometry of the old Marinship building on the Sausalito waterfront, where she has painted for close to 40 years, often show up in her compositions as a quiet homage to the shipyard workers who built it. Next to the paintings she runs her own intaglio press. She uses it mostly for monoprints that are close relatives of her paintings, and as part of her collage-making, cutting and layering printed and painted papers into new pieces like Road Scraps and Cyanoplay. Music runs through everything. Leslie studies cello and plays in the College of Marin Symphony Orchestra, and she sees painting and music as deeply entwined: tempo, rhythm, a duet of two colours, a slow movement in blue. Titles like Blues Duet, Largo e Lento and Steppin' Out Again come straight from that world. She also shares the process. In her studio she mentors artists of all ages and offers lessons and workshops, keeping the door open to anyone curious about how a painting comes together.