The Natural

Now I know first hand why all those Old Masters had apprentices......to help with the hard work in the studio! Luckily, I have TWO; Dave and my sister, Nancy. Initially, Nancy and I worked in tandem while I taught her the techniques of paint making. But she caught on very quickly using her natural flair and easily developed an understanding of each individual pigment characteristic.

Each pigment easily takes about one hour to grind, place in the tube, clean up between pigments, and document in three places. A good sweat is worked up with each one too! One useful trick we discovered is to grind similar colors back to back. Say......a yellow ochre and a raw sienna. That way the grinding slab and muller don't have to be immaculately cleaned in the manner between say....vermilion and lapis.

Nancy has added several green earths, raw umber, English red ochre, Terra Pozzuoli, and a terrific yellow ochre from France to my ever growing palette. This project would easily take ten times longer without the help of my two indispensable assistants. Because of them I have been able to spend more time planning, painting, and documenting each piece.