Color Differences between Paint Brands

I use cobalt violet as the underpainting for my paintings, an incredible trick I learned from Stapleton Kearns. I like to use it because cobalt violet is vibrant, making a painting shine from the first layer outwards and also because of its weak tinting strength meaning it won't dramatically affect any colors I put on top of it. In search of "the right paint", I prefer to try a different brand every time a tube runs out. Over time, I’ll find a brand I really like and stick with that. Due to personal taste I stopped using Gamblin's cobalt violet, and I’d recently finished a tube of Windsor & Newton's cobalt violet, so imagine my surprise when I bought a tube of Rembrandt cobalt violet only to find it was nearly a different color entirely:

Two swatches of Cobalt Violet paint by different brands.

Both paint brands purport to sell the same product: Cobalt Violet. Both brands are labeled the same yet they are nearly different colors. Rembrandt's Violet is far more pink than W&N's, in fact it's far more pink than any other Cobalt Violet I've used up to this point. There is no way for me to know why this is different, as it's not included on the label, short of me directly writing to both companies to ask.

What's going on here?

In my time as a Blick worker, I often answered the same questions over and over again (as with all retail). I often fielded the paint questions because around this time I was also geeking out hardcore about making my own paint. People frequently wondered what the differences were and with at least 5 'artist-grade' paint brands to choose from and well more 'student-grade' to choose from the differences aren't always easy to spot. Many times, it takes buying and using a tube all the way up to find out.

There are several major differences between brands of premade paint. First, we should acknowledge that paint is comprised of three ingredients: pigment, vehicle, and additives. Of these, paint tubes usually only display the pigment and vehicle, and the really cheap ones don't tell you anything at all. We're going to focus on just the pigment.

There is a classification system for pigments, and like other classification systems there is a disconnect between the names of paints and the technical ingredients. For example, Naples Yellow is originally made from Antimony Yellow which was an 18th century replacement for Lead Tin Yellow. In part because of the toxicity and modern expense, Naples is now often made as a 'hue' using combinations of other colors. If you open up Naples Yellow from Grumbacher, you will discover a completely different color from Gamblin. From Grumbacher.chartpak.com, Grumbacher Pre-Tested Naples Yellow contains: Zinc Oxide (PW4), Cadmium Yellow (PY35), Cadmium Red (PR108), and Natural Brown Oxide (PBr7). Meanwhile on Dickblick.com, Gamblin Artist's Oil Color Naples Yellow contains Titanium White (PW06), Arylide Yellow (PY75), and Yellow Ochre (PY43). We'll return to the compound information in a second, but here is what both paints advertise as their color online:

Gamblin Naples Yellow (from their website)

Grumbacher Naples Yellow, From Their Website

They share not a single pigment in common, appear visibly different, and neither are true to the original formula yet they're both sold under the same name: Why? The answer is that “Naples Yellow” is an idea rather than a pigment. With colors like Naples Yellow, the difference between brands is so dramatic that for any artist's purpose, they may be considered different paints entirely. For Naples Yellow, the name is more of a general description and not a specific definition of a color.

For the far less dramatic differences, let’s consider paints that are defined by their name and remain generally consistent. If you look at the ingredients listed on a tube of paint, you’ll often be rewarded with pigment classifications, for example: titanium white (PW06). PW06 means Pigment White #6 and refers exclusively to titanium dioxide rutile. This classification system is mostly precise and refers to the chemical compound used as the pigment. Still, there are differences in pigment. Sourcing the pigments will often affect the final qualities.

Take the case of Pigment Blue #29 (PB29): Ultramarine Blue. Ultramarine Blue can be purchased in "green shade" and "red shade" which tint the final color warm or cool depending. For professional artists, this is a significant difference. Yet, the pigment classification makes no distinction between the two, it is up to the manufacturer to explain the difference (or not). In the case of ultramarine blue, most of the time it's warm shade unless stated otherwise.

So why is my new tube of cobalt violet pinker than every previous tube? Well, from a purely technical standpoint, both are classified as PV14 (pigment Violet #14) which means there's probably a sourcing difference. After that, additives, and oil choice usually won’t alter the colors so dramatically out of the tube.

A better clue comes from the finer brands. The more expensive (and usually better made) paint brands such as Williamsburg and Michael Harding. For example, on Michael Harding’s website, Two colors are displayed: Cobalt Violet Light and Cobalt Violet Dark. Thankfully, MH has done the fine research for us stating of Cobalt Violet Light:

“Inorganic – First made from the rare ore of Cobalt Phosphate in the mid-19th century, this is now a synthetic inorganic pigment, of which the lighter shade is closer to the original, natural version.

Incredible! It’s completely reshaped my understanding of modern cobalt. I used to treat this color like it was radioactive (because heavy metal poisoning is the opposite of fun). So a little research goes a long way. Thanks Mr. Harding! Additionally, I use several MH paints and I can attest to their fine quality. You’ll pay for it for sure, but it’s a far finer paint than other brands. Quality wise it’s in the running with Old Holland and I would estimate is superior to Williamsburg.

Case closed!

9-Scales: the Utility of Exercises

My art making practice incorporates multiple regular exercises and rules. The purpose of these exercises is to raise the standard of unconscious behavior. As regular strength training workouts improve your physical condition, so too do regular artistic exercises increase the chance of success when it's time to execute a painting.

One of my absolute favorites is the 9-Scale: a simple color exercise that stretches both your understanding of two particular colors and your overall sensitivity to hue. Most of all, 9-scales will give you an appreciation for the physical characteristics of each individual paint. It's fairly common knowledge that some paints are more transparent than others, but that particular quality- the covering power - is just one of many characteristics of paints. Some other characteristics include: the rheology or "goopiness" of paint, the tinting strength, the particle size, yellowing, medium choice, and more. All of these aspects of paint subtly affect what we understand to be a color. If there is one prime takeaway from a 9-scale let it be this: paints are more than their color.

A 9-scale is easily accomplished in under 20 minutes; I like to do one as a warm up. A palette knife is necessary or at least highly recommended.

Ultramarine Blue and Titanium white on my glass palette.

Starting with two colors of choice, in my case ultramarine blue and titanium white, place a large glob of each apart from each other on the palette. With your palette knife, take a sample of each and mix in the middle a color which is not more one than the other. I frame it explicitly this way because you should be judging whether this middle color is closer to one or the other, not: "trying to find a middle color". In my case, I will attempt to visually discern whether the middle color I just mixed is more titanium white, or more ultramarine blue. When you are satisfied with this color, you will have the 3 colors: each side and a new middle-ish color.

My first two mixed colors

Your next step will be to find the next two "middle colors" between the middle and each pole. Once again, your task is to find a color not more like the middle color than the polar colors. This will leave you with a scale of 5. As you can extrapolate by the title, the last step is 4 more swatches between each of the existing colors. You should finally have 9 from one end to the other.

My 9-scale from Ultramarine Blue to Titanium White

Resist the urge to fix colors after you've decided on them. The resulting unevenness tells you about the quality and character of the paint. Though your goal is an ideal and perfect gradient from one pole to the other, in practice, you'll rarely if ever have anything "perfect". In all likelihood, you'll have something that's 70-90% accurate. In my own examples above, you can see my less accurate estimates such as the 3rd from left is closer to the middle than to the ultramarine blue. Additionally, my 7th isn't white enough, both of these cause the 4th and the 6th colors to end up very close to their surrounding colors. I probably also made the middle color too light, which gave me more room to estimate towards blue than it did towards white. All in all, very imperfect, but that's what exercises are for.

The strength of the color will affect how much of it you need to achieve a "middle" ground, if you don't believe me, try finding the middle ground between cobalt violet and cadmium red light and let me know how much violet you put in before you achieve the desired optical mix.

9-scales will inform both your chosen colors and the relationship between them. When I'm experimenting with a color, I'll often run a series of 9-scales with it to see how it will act with the rest of my palette. I'll try a color against titanium white for sure, but I'll also try it against a dark color, or a cool color or a warm color. For a real challenge, try two colors that are very similar; it's the definition of splitting hairs.

I hope you find this exercise helpful.

Edit Paintings with GIMP

Making your work presentable online can often be a challenge for the visual artist less technologically inclined, moreso if they wish to use human respecting technology to do it. I won’t deep dive into the merits of free and open source programming here, as that’s an argument I can and will soapbox on repeatedly (I’m awful at parties). Just know that ‘FLOSS’ which stands for Free and Libre Open Source Software is technology that is in principle more user respecting than proprietary technology. There is no shortage of commercial proprietary image editing options- many are familiar with Adobe’s Photoshop, or use Apple’s image editing software that comes with their Iphone. Using commercial (often expensive) software is unnecessary for this task.

Allow me to Introduce GIMP, a comprehensive image editing application for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It’s one of many FLOSS image editing tools available and especially due to it’s age (at 25 years of development) is stable and functional. If you are used to Photoshop, you may become frustrated or disappointed with GIMP as it looks similar but acts differently. I ask that you unlearn what you already know to embrace the GIMP workflow.

GIMP (which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program) works best when you think about it as an order of operations. To get a desired result, there are best feet to put first. In the case of editing a picture of a painting, I like to take the following steps: 1. Select and open the picture 2. crop the photo, 3. stretch the picture into a rectangle, 4. check that the ratio is correct, and adjust if needed, 5. edit the colors, 6. adjust blurriness 7. address glare, and 8. export (save) the picture. The goal is to make a picture of your painting look good on a screen which starts with the photograph and ends with a file.

A quick note on shooting your work. There are many online tutorials on shooting your work so I’m going to breeze over it. The better your photograph to start, the less work you have to do to fix it. The important thing in shooting your paintings is to have consistent indirect light. Near a window on a cloudy day for example. Direct light will reflect off of your painting, so you should never use flash. Taking a head on shot will make it easier to crop and fix the perspective later on. Using a good enough camera is also important, low quality cameras will add graininess which is difficult to fix in post. There are more tips too, but it’s worth your time to really look up a tutorial for shooting the work itself.

You can download GIMP from https://www.gimp.org/ for whatever desktop operating system you’re using and follow the usual steps you’d take to install software. After installing GIMP, fire it up: you’ll be greeted by a screen that looks something like this:

GIMP 2.10.22 main screen

Across the top you’ll see the menu bar where all of your options are accessible from. To the left is the ‘Toolbox’ where you’ll have easy access to different tools for manipulating your picture. On the right are the ‘dockable dialogues’ with sections such as layers, document history, and more. Both the dockable dialogues and toolbox are customizable.

1. Open a picture

Open your photo from [File]>[Open] (Ctrl+O). and find your picture file in your computer. For the sake of this tutorial, I’m editing a picture of one of my own paintings. I actually don’t think the picture I took is very good- it’s overexposed to light so I’ll have to correct that later.

My picture opened in GIMP

2. Crop

My initial operation on the picture will be to crop it as far as I can. The Crop Tool (selected with Shift+C) will let me draw a rectangular region around where I intend to crop to. This tool works the same way you should be accustomed to in other programs. Bring the crop in to the closest edges on each side (pictured: the crop on my painting, and closeups of two corners). To aid in getting the crop as close as you can, you can zoom in and out of the work area with Ctrl+Scroll Wheel. The scroll wheel is very useful for moving around your picture; in addition to zooming, you can also pan up and down with Scroll Up and Down and side to side with Shift+Scroll. Lastly, you can free grab the whole picture to move around with Middle Click (Scroll Wheel Button) if available. When you are comfortable with your crop, press Enter to commit the operation.

the crop tool in action

zoom in top left corner where I’ve brought the edge in.

…and also on the top right corner.

3. Perspective Tool

Likely, you didn’t take a photo of the painting perfectly head on, just as I didn’t. In my better shots, this is less noticeable, but with the photo I’m using I took the picture at an angle. Because there was so much light in the room, angling the picture is a way to avoid reflected light which is a more difficult problem to solve than perspective. Enter the Perspective Tool (Shift+P). The perspective tool will allow you to ‘pull’ the picture to fit the rectangle as though you were turning a 3 dimensional panel. This is in essence the ‘undoing’ of the angle at which I shot the piece. This tool allows you to pull each of the 4 corners into place. If your painting is warped, or if you’ve cropped wrong, this tool may be inadequate. In the next two pictures, you can see a closeup of pulling a corner to fit and the picture of the transformation matrix just before I commit it with Enter.

pull the edges past the border to line up the painting within the crop

once only the painting is in view, commit with Enter

4. Set the Aspect Ratio

the Scale Image dialogue

This step can be done at any point, but I do it now just to get it out of the way. I double check to make sure I haven’t warped the picture in one way or another. I do this by clicking [Image] in the menu bar then [Scale Image] and see the ratio 3155x2581px. I know that my painting is 20x16” or a ratio of 5/4. I can divide 3155 by 5 to get 631 then multiply by 4 to get 2524. In other words, my picture is 57 pixels off the ideal 5*4 ratio. I can then input the ideal ratio in height as: 2524. To make sure I don’t edit both values, I click the chain link icon to ‘uncouple’ the values. I input the corrected value, and click [Scale] to commit the operation. This step is primarily useful if you intend to make prints of your work and need the aspect ratio to be absolutely correct.

5. Edit the Colors

You’re now ready to alter the colors. I prefer to do it once all the warping and other aspects are taken care of so I can really try to match my painting 1:1. There are a variety of tools you can use to alter the colors in your picture. I’m going to use the Levels tool found under the toolbar [Colors] and then [Levels]. You should know that editing the colors is an often imprecise art. The colors will need to be optimized one way for printing and another for the screen; even the color temperature and accuracy of your computer screen will make drastic differences in the final product. If you know your computer monitor is an ‘off’ color you should either find a different monitor or make the color edits keeping the color differences in mind. The professionals pay thousands of dollars for a ‘true color’ monitor.

Noting that we’re doing our best with the tools we’ve got, here’s what the ‘levels’ operation looks like:

The Levels Dialogue

from top to bottom:

• presets which are useful for when you’re shooting a group of photos in the exact same lighting condition.

• Channel provides the input on the RGB scale with value (dark to light) and alpha (transparency) as additional options.

• The input levels show a graph. This graph displays the amount and intensity of the selected scale. For example remember how I told you my photo was overexposed? We can see that with the large spikes on the right and the ‘late’ entrance of the darks.

• The three sliders allow you to manually adjust the black point, the white point, and the midtones. When you select a different channel, red for example, the ‘high point’ will be red and the ‘low point will be Cyan.

• Below this is the output levels slider which allows you to adjust the limits of your values.

• There is an ‘Auto Input Levels’ button, but I don’t entirely recommend it, it can be a little aggressive and our need is delicate.

• The three pickers to the right allow you to ‘pick’ the black point, mid point and white point. Using these pickers tells the program what "the absolute blackest color is and the absolute whitest color is. Use with caution.

• The ‘split view’ toggle is useful for seeing how much you’re affecting the picture before you commit the operation.

• Lastly the reset button on the bottom is useful for when you knock something out of place and need to try again.

In the case of my picture, I desperately need to pump up the darks and tone down the whites. I do this by bringing the dark point to 48, move the midtone lower to .85 (raising the contrast), and bringing the lights down a touch to 249. Overexposure of a picture can lead to extreme highs and lows so I also bring the output levels inward towards grey just a hair with black at 10 and white at 242, respectively

my values are probably fine, but a lot hinges on what type of lighting you have. In my case, my light is very ‘blue’ and so I’ll need to switch to the blue channel and bring up the yellows (represented as the dark slider) to about 40 or so. Adjust as needed, bring up or down the reds, magenta, green, or whatever you see fit. The best and easiest way to get accurate color is to do this process while physically looking at the painting itself so check whether you’re getting it right or not. I periodically zoom in and out of sections while doing this so that I can look closely at the color of a brush stroke. I commit the changes with Enter.

Now at this point, I could be considered “good enough to submit to a show, but not quite good enough to make a print of my painting”. A few aspects stand out to me so I’ll address them. 1st, there is glare on the right side of the painting from light. it’s subtle which is good, but kicking up the contrast made it more visible. 2nd, zooming in shows that my picture is a little blurry in some areas. I can adjust and affect both of these.

Blurriness in the upper left hand side

Glare on the right side

6. Dealing with Blurriness

The Sharpen operation dialogue

Let’s deal with the Blurriness of the picture first. we’re going to use an Unsharp Mask which is located in [Filters]>[Enhance]>[Sharpen (Unsharp Mask)]. We should be very careful with this tool because it’s quite powerful and it’s easy to overdo it. I’m using the standard input here of radius=3, amount=.5, and threshold=0. I’ve also made the conservative step of lowering the opacity of this filter in the Blending Options sub tab down to 83% so that the effect is less strong than it could be.

That was easy right? Remember that the best way to deal with this problem is to NOT HAVE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE! If you take a sharp in focus picture, you do not have to use an unsharp mask, and the final picture will be nicer looking for it.

7. Dealing with Glare with the Dodge/Burn Tool

The Dodge/Burn tool options

We’ll deal with that pesky glare now. This is the most hands on and by far my least favorite part of the process. For it, we’ll use the Dodge/Burn Tool. The dodge burn tool has the ability to dramatically present itself: the goal in using this tool should be its invisibility. Dodge/Burn will let you darken or lighten select areas or your picture. You can alter the hardness of this tool so that using it will feel more like feathering than drawing.

Note that your tool options appear below the toolbox . Since the glare on my painting is primarily in a vertical strip down the right side, I’m going to approach it in one good sweep. Less is more, have I convinced you yet? In all the drawing tools in GIMP, clicking once, then holding shift will allow you to apply the effects in a straight line. I make the size of the brush large so that I only have to make one pass. I set my opacity to 25%.

Scrolling down, there are two very important options: the Type and the Range.

Selecting our tools

Select Burn and make sure it only affects Highlights in the range, because our goal is to darken the highlights (glare).

I click once at the top of the right side, hold Shift and click once at the bottom. This will apply Burn in the selected path. If the effect is too strong, lower the Opacity in the tool options to the left and try again. Like other programs, Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y undo and redo operations respectively.

clicking once in the top right corner…

…holding shift and clicking in the bottom right corner

8. Saving

Finally! It’s time to save. If you aren’t finished working on your file, you can hit Ctrl+S to save as an .SCF file. To produce a desired image file you’ll need to use [Export] (Ctrl+Shift+E). By default, GIMP will attempt to export as the type of image you started working on. For example, I am editing a .JPG so it will try and save it as a .JPG. JPG’s are good for submitting work and for Instagram because they’re compressed which makes them smaller image files, but this compromises the quality somewhat and isn’t ideal for archiving purposes. A .PNG file is not compressed which means it’s lossless.

“If you want a high quality photo, export as .PNG, and if you want a smaller file size, export as a .jpg.”

To export as whatever file you wish, simply name it with the file type of your choice then click Export. This will bring up the relevant export options. Most of the time, these options should be set to reasonable defaults. The Compression Level in the PNG options simply means how much care GIMP should take in making the file. 9 is good, 1 is quick. I select 9 then click Export. Similar options are provided if you choose to export as .JPG including a quality scale. Once again, I suggest using the defaults unless you have specific needs.

And that’s it! Here’s the final picture below:

Good enough for my website!

I hope this tutorial was both helpful in editing your work as well as understanding the process a little more. Artists are a group that like any other should benefit from software freedom and I wish to dispel the notion that only programming elite can or should use free and open source software. Please let me know if you have any questions about this tutorial, what you thought of it, and/or if I got anything wrong; I’m always interested in good feedback.

Pleinair Kit Teardown

What’s in a Pack?

I use what’s known as a draftsman's backpack to carry my portable studio. This has its advantages and disadvantages but most importantly it’s a system that works for me. My outdoor painting kit allows me to carry everything I could need to execute at least one painting on site, anywhere I can walk. This kit does not have a pochade box but I imagine that it could be feasibly added in the same compartment I keep my palette.

The Draftsman’s backpack (figure 1) comes in a variety of styles but the form factor remains the same: one large 18x24x3” pocket that spans the whole backpack (1), one circular 24x4” pocket along the outer facing edge (2) and depending on the style, an assortment of other smaller pockets. My backpack has a 2” deep round pocket (3), a half moon pocket near the top approximately 5” in diameter by 10” wide (4), a 12x16x2” pocket (5), a mesh outer pocket (6), and lastly two small pockets on the straps in front (7).

(1) The deep pocket holds an 18x24” canvas or two. I keep an 18x24” gatorboard in there to keep the pack rigid and usually only take 1 panel or canvas with me per trek. Note that this means the largest panel I can get away with at the moment is 18x24” before I have to carry it in my hands. Additionally, I have yet to solve the ‘wet painting’ problem. This means I have to carry the wet painting back with me by hand- I often keep it clipped into my easel and fold the legs in for relatively stress free transport.

(4) The top circular pocket appears intended for pens and pencils. I keep a set of 7 paints in there- the pocket easily fits several 120ml tubes, as well as my clip on palette cup and palette knife.

(2)The tall tubular pocket is likely intended for draftsman’s tubes to protect drawings on paper. I find it particularly useful for holding a cheap fold-up easel. Surprisingly, the easel has lasted quite long: over two years at this point which is remarkable for a sub $50 easel. I use the straps on this pocket to hold my turpentine container and so far it’s worked well.

(5) The 12x16” pocket holds my homemade brush pouch, my palette, and my rags zip pouch. In this pocket, I also keep a long ‘brush holder’ bag for my dirty brushes’ journey home. I always wipe my whole palette clean so as to keep this pocket usable

(3) The round pocket doesn’t need to be round, but that’s simply a design choice I suppose. I keep my brush clip (absolutely necessary for a foldup easel), a small bottle of homemade medium (“sauce”), a small cup of Masters brush soap just in case, and sometimes other myriad tools here.

(6) The mesh zip pocket is where I keep my bug netting headpiece (this will save your sanity, for a measly $15) and when necessary, my headlight for nocturnes. I often throw my rubber gloves in here as well. This pocket is great for overflow items; I can even fit my sun hat in there.

(7) Lastly, there are the two small pockets in the front of the backpack. I keep a couple dollars cash in one (just in case), and a fat stack of business cards in the other (just in case!!). Not shown is a loop on the front where I can clip my water bottle; always hydrate.

Figure 1: My backpack

Figure 2: My kit unpacked, displaying all my tools.

In all, my kit is a ‘complete’ studio away from home that allows me to comfortably execute a painting anywhere and any time. By keeping my utilities light, I can foray further than if I were just cruising for spots from a car with the added bonus that setup can be assembled and disassembled quickly and easily. I believe this setup can be improved upon in several areas, and like all things, my kit is a work in progress. My plan is to eventually reinforce the large pocket with corrugated plastic so as to actually ‘file’ a wet painting in there, but so far I haven’t settled on a proper material for the frame and I don’t think the corrugated plastic alone would keep a painting from damage.

Sharing Digital Performance Space

I was recently honored to attend a limited seating performance of playback theatre performed by First Drop Theatre. I wasn’t breaking quarantine: First Drop performed from Bangalore, India and I watched (and participated) from the USA and others joined from China, Australia, Sweden, and elsewhere. We were all on Zoom together.

For the uninitiated, playback theatre is a performance art whereby the theatre troupe requests stories from the audience and “play it back” to them. Like general improv, playback utilizes a variety of styles and to guide the series of performances, themes are usually denoted beforehand. Playback shares many aspects with improv theatre but also necessarily includes personal stories from the audience making each performance unique. This mode frequently provides space for people to drop emotions from their shoulders as the format is extremely cathartic; its venn diagram touches expressive arts therapy nearly as much as improv theatre.

Because the person running the performance: Dr. Radhika Jain explained at the beginning that they wished to create a safe space, I have not taken screenshots or videos of this performance. This is no different then requesting audience members not photograph or record video with their phone during a material performance and is crucial for encouraging vulnerability. This digital space immediately cast down any notions of office Zoom chat memes; we quickly felt comfortable with each other. This is by design. Many playback theatre performances start with audience members encouraged to meet the people to their left and right, in front of them and behind them. During the performance, Radhika split us off into smaller groups to speak with each other- another common part of a playback performance. Nothing is perfect, and while our first ‘breakout’ had perhaps too many people at 10, the second was a much more intimate one-on-one. The audience warmed up and more stories flowed- of anxieties, loss, enthusiasm, frustration and confusion. Bottled up in their homes, people spoke. and then we watched the troupe play back to us all. We shared this cathartic storytelling environment facilitated by performance art in a truly unique and contemporary way.

As the performance wrapped up, I felt gratitude for the privilege of joining this moment and also excitement; my eyes wide open to new possibilities to connect despite the social distancing mandate. Despite everything, we can still make art together and we can still breathe together and, I think, we can make it though this, together.

You can learn more about First Drop Theatre at their website: https://firstdroptheatre.com/about/

Psychic Resonance

I don’t find astrology, or tarot, or other forms of divination particularly outside the realms of human possibility. If this sounds counter to the way I usually come across to people who know me or witchcraft to people who don’t, please hear me out.

People live deep enriching lives that take on the forms of beautiful stories. In the same way a visual story might earnestly touch someone’s heart, and a movie might call a faint memory to the surface, so too do I believe that more spiritually based forms of storytelling arts operate. I have no qualms calling them such either, as in the extremely limited scope of my knowledge, that’s how they appear to me.

The purpose of divining often dredges knowledge from the unconscious sea to the conscious surface. I believe that painting operates this way too, and there are many expressionists and surrealists who would gladly back me up. Short of declaring a new ISM and writing a manifesto, I prefer to allow a more passive approach: paint within reason and allow myself the space to accompany my brush on the ride. The paintings that I’m most proud of are always the paintings that surprise me- showing me something I’ve never seen before.

Often, I think we look for signs and meanings quietly even if unaware. Recently, I’ve been extremely taken by a particular view from an archway looking into an enclosed pool area. Since I first saw it a month ago, I knew I had to paint it: the finished painting already in my head and the execution the mystery. As I started the painting, I realized that I had copied a form that I was painting a year ago in Boston. Below are the two paintings: ‘Void Study 5’ and ‘Void Study 6’ from 2018 in Boston, and Children in Cages 3: Sketch for a Painting’ from 2019.

Void Study 5, Oil/Canvas, 16x20”, 2018

Void Study 6, Oil/Canvas, 16x20”, 2018

Children in Cages 3: Sketch for a Painting, Oil/Cardboard, 24x48”, 2019

As soon as I painted the sketch, I noticed the similarity in composition: a stark entry gating a recessed background. In the previous Void studies, I was enthralled with this idea of unknowing and the ways we processed it. In the Void studies, I used the darkness of night as a foil for the limits of our knowledge. The gates were somewhat more natural at first: they needed to be a barrier of sorts and I wasn’t interested in organic barriers: they quickly went from abstract block shapes to the physical gates you see above. At the time, and I suspect I’m not the only painter who works this way, I wasn’t entirely sure why I felt the need to paint what I did, only that I had the urge to and that I was following that urge. With the clarity of hindsight, it makes more sense to me now, or perhaps I’ve simply found a good enough explanation for them.

So now, the form has shifted and the meaning is again fresh and uncertain as though the waters, clear for a moment have turned once again opaque. The resurfacing of ideas, unintentional or otherwise, point to a larger picture, a greater idea that’s spilling out, or simply a pattern or substrate by which I am able to imprint my own story upon.