Paper decides more about a watercolour than the paints do. On what cotton fibre gives you, why cellulose drinks water faster, what 300 gsm means in practice and how to test a sheet before buying a whole block.
Gouache is a water paint that covers. It lets you paint light over dark, which watercolour cannot do, but it shifts colour as it dries and dissolves under the next layer. On when that is an asset and when a nuisance.
Linen or cotton is the first choice in an oil painting and the only one that cannot be undone later. What really separates the two, and the size at which the difference stops being theoretical.
An oil painting dries on three levels and each takes a different time: moments to the touch, days or weeks through, months to the end. What it depends on, and what follows for the painter and the buyer.
An oil painting asks for very little once it is on the wall — provided nobody harms it with good intentions. Where to hang it, how to dust it and what never to do.
Some painting terms are known by description rather than by name: „a transparent layer of paint”, „the wooden frame under a canvas”. The ones asked about most often, explained from the studio.
The glossy layer on an oil painting is not paint — it is varnish. I explain what it does, why it has to wait six months to a year, and what happens when someone applies it too early.
I sell both originals and prints, so I can write about this plainly. How to tell one from the other, how a good print differs from a poster, and when a reproduction is the better choice.
The same subject in blues and in yellows pulls a room in two different directions. What colour temperature is, how it works in an interior, and why a cool painting on a north wall can be a mistake.
I photograph the plants people walk past without stopping and call weeds. Ribwort plantain, celandine, wild cucumber — what they look like up close and why these are the ones I photograph.
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