Dear community of colour lovers, makers, worshippers, whisperers and other multi-hued wizards… I have now put online my whole book about Paint (eight years of research and ninety thousand words!)
In it I share some genuinely colourful and fun stories about… Pigments! Binders! Paint making! History! Science! Art!… in short, just about everything of importance and worthy of sharing (sometimes also really hard to find information which might help painters and other lovers of colour get an even greater understanding and hence appreciation of their materials.)

There are personal reasons behind my decision to publish this book online. For one, curiosity seemed to be tugging at my wings, and as much as I have enjoyed learning about art materials and the people behind this niche and much-beloved world, Life seems to be taking me on another path. (The Muse has not (so far) been kind enough to clarify what it will look like nor where it will lead me, but certainly not in spending months (years!) of my life rewriting the entire book ten times to please an agent, then a publisher, then… Plus, as that was my profession, I love researching artworks to illustrate my point and, this way, I got to use ALL the images I wanted!)

But there are other reasons, too. When I began my blog/website, it was the sharing of information that excited me and the possibility that you might prove me wrong or could pass on complementary information that would enrich the text. The beauty of this formula is that I can make changes and add info at any stage. After making that decision, I also remembered that I had pinched some of the material from my own website/blogs but that, now, I need not do that. A link would suffice and help you not get bogged down by lengthy explanations or descriptions.

And SO… after uploading a section of the book once a week in a post, it is now available for free in its entirety on this website. You can start at the beginning, by clicking here (and a tab at the bottom of every section will take you straight to the next one.) Or you can go to the Table of Contents to browse the sections and pick one which interests you or might answer a question you have… Enjoy!

Love from the girl who’s in bed with Mona Lisa (well, sort of)