In contrast to the practice of many artists, who make drawings in order to sketch or plan a future painting or sculpture, Johns's practice is the opposite of preparatory. The great majority of his works on paper are highly finished drawings based on paintings or sculpture he has already made, sometimes years earlier. As he has said, "I like to repeat an image in another medium to observe the play between the two: the image and the medium." Of the more than one hundred paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures Johns has made employing the American flag image, this elegant white oil on paper most closely resembles the 1955 White Flag acquired this year. The brown paper ground of the drawing slightly echoes the beeswax and newsprint ground of the large painting, and the individual touches of oil on the drawing resemble yet differ from the encaustic paint strokes on White Flag.