The Water's Fine – beginning to approach pigment & color

‘Color’ is far too vast of a topic to ever really dive into. It’s the entire makeup of the world around us, it’s perception, it’s mood, it’s light. It’s a simple, concrete idea that kids understand before they even learn the alphabet, and yet its incorporeal, intangibly fleeting our grasp and morphing from the moment the sun rises till long after it sets. As a painter, my relationship with color is ever evolving, ever growing. Color is emotive, symbolic. But it’s also science. It's also history. It's actually a whole bunch of other things that you wouldn't expect it to be. It’s from this platform that I choose to dive into the vast sea of color. Hope you brought your swimsuit.

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Grounded by the Infinite – considering the possibilities of painting grounds

I thought I was at the top of my game, making these neatly trimmed, smooth as skin, drum-tight canvases primed with Acrylic Gesso that you could bounce a dime off of. Then I learned (thanks, Painting Materials & Techniques I!) that Acrylic Gesso was only one of the endless material options that could be used as a ground! What had always been taught as the default, go-to option, was actually just one choice out of so, so many. Acrylic Gesso, Clear Gesso, Colored Gesso, Acrylic Matte Medium, Acrylic Gloss Medium, Traditional Gesso, Rabbit Skin Glue, PVA Size, Chalk Ground, White Chalk Oil Emulsion, Pigmented Chalk Oil Emulsion, Oil Ground... I'll stop there.

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Your Math Teacher Wasn't Lying – additive and subtractive painting processes

When your math teacher said you’re going to need addition and subtraction in everything you do, he wasn’t lying. Painting is a process of what you add and subtract, and the result is just as much about what you didn’t do, what you removed, and what you left incomplete as it is about what you did do, what you added, and what you completed. We’re going to start with basic paint mixing techniques, and somehow end up creating a link between underpaintings and monotypes– positive space, negative space, additive painting, subtractive painting. Seurat, Vermeer and Degas will definitely be involved… perhaps a few others. Game on.

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