The “heavy impasto” technique, as Johnson described it, is “the juxtaposition of color” achieved by using two separate colors of paint on the brush at one time.
The mind when subjected to a two color-pattern, shifts from one color…to the other creating a sense of color movement or a shimmering effect. The edges of…alternating bars of red and blue…give a sensory stimulus to the mind creating an image of purple. If we were to thoroughly mix the red and blue pigment the effect would still be purple, but without the movement or shimmer, as there would be no sensory interplay between the colors.
Tenements (Lincoln), oil, 1939
“O” Street Flag Shanty (Lincoln), oil, 1941
Smoke Drift (Burlington Roundhouse, Lincoln), oil, 1949
Neighborhood Backyards (Lincoln), oil. 1948
Shoppers (Lincoln), oil, 1954
Antelope Creek Bridge or Blue Rhapsody (Lincoln), oil, 1949
Blue River Dam No. 3 (Milford), oil, 1947
Giants in the Earth (Lincoln), oil, 1957
Pause for Refreshments (Clay County, Nebraska), oil, 1957
Spring Thaw (rural Seward, Nebraska), oil, 1948
Noon Chores (central Nebraska), oil, 1951
Portrait of the Johnsons (Seward, Nebraska), oil, 1952
