“Tube painting?” some guy yelled at me from about 30 feet away at my first exhibition in a large indoor art show in downtown Toronto back in about 2002.  I was puzzled by what he was asking.  I am an oil painter and I don’t make my own paint.  I buy it in tubes….in the largest tubes I can get.  But I think most oil painters buy their paint in tubes… after all it changed an artist’s ablilty to easily paint en plein air once tubes were invented.  

So if not this, then what was the fellow shouting about?  Over the years I have heard a few comments from others that have led to my understanding that they are referring to the fact that I use a full spectrum of available paint colours rather than a limited painting palette where I mix each colour individually.  Some artists choose to use this limited palette and paint in this way.  I also learned how to do this in art school at OCAD along with many other ways of painting and I even learned how to make paint!

I LOVE COLOUR!

In search of my own way of doing things, I decided I love colour and I love painting with energy while I am dancing so I choose to do what works for me now.  People love to see my palette and a number of adults have actually stuck their fingers in my oil paint.  Many people have photographed my palettes over the years. 

CHANGING PALETTES WITH THE SEASONS!

I change my palette as I change seasons.  I always mix my grey tones.   So in a painting requiring lots of grey tones I mix all of them.  In fact I have done 6 by 9 foot oil paintings in black and white without ever touching a tube of black or grey paint.  I mixed my black which gave it a remarkable energy over the large surface as it became darks and lights and mid-tones.

CONTEMPORARY COLOUR MIXING

I have also developed a way of mixing all my wonderful tubes of paint colour with a very contemporary result.  I load up my brush with the main colour of the brush stroke or blob of paint. I often add in its complementary colour and even two or more other colours in the same paint blob. This all gets mixed in the paint stroke.  See my example in this snapshot of a few of my paint globs.

I am following my passion and my colours! Notice how my finished paintings represent the physical embodiment of my passion!

Beautiful colours in paint tubes….bring them on!

Happy painting on lovely summer days!

Debra