Castor Oil Plant

Wanda Gág first used sandpaper for drawings and watercolors because it was cheap. But it became indispensable when she discovered that light glinting off the raised grains of sand on the sheet’s surface made her scenes luminous and alive—major goals of her art. She rarely made sandpaper paintings as rich and deeply colored as this ornamental castor oil plant. One reason may be that such paintings used great quantities of paint and destroyed her brushes.