The Jack Dudley paintings for sale in this exhibit are masterful examples of the broken color technique in oil painting. Also known as scumbling, a favorite technique of the old masters, the broken color effect occurs when an opaque color is scumbled or laid over the undercolors. Small areas of undercolor then show through due to the thinly or irregularly applied opaque color. Dudley deftly employed a palette knife to scumble his colors. Brilliant shards of paint interweave, producing a canvas textured with vibrant tonal patterns, a canvas that literally shimmers.

Traditional scumbling as a painterly technique was highly favored until a century ago. Scumbling fell out of fashion because it took so long for the oils to dry that each work-in-progress became prolonged and tedious. Today's quick-dry oils and watercolors allow for a renaissance of the broken color technique, though few artists have engaged it. Jack dudley's artistic expressions remain a rare modern form of broken color painting.