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

There are personal reasons behind my decision to publish this book online. I have felt for some months that it is done and that my appetite for walking the last line was dwindling by the week. For one, curiosity seems 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 the following 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 get to use ALL the images I want!

But there are other reasons, too. When I began my blog/website, the sharing of information 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 website/blog posts, but now I need not do that. A link will suffice and help you not get bogged down by lengthy explanations or descriptions.

And SO… I shall be posting a section of the book once a week. Some are pretty short, and some need to be longer, but if you want to receive a weekly instalment, please follow my blog by subscribing at the bottom of this page. I’m choosing this format as I hope these will be manageable reading treats and allow me to review each section as it comes. (I take writing seriously, even if I try to be as fun as possible—because I take laughter even more seriously.) Too, I hope your comments will improve the final version by picking up any misunderstandings or mistakes I might have made, as I respect knowledge.

When all is done, Hues in Tubes will be available to download entirely for free (I’m also quite over selling anything.) In the meantime, hopefully, you’ll enjoy the weekly trickles enough to forgive me the wait of more than a year for the book-that-is-not-a-book to be!

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

Click on Synopsis to get a little taste of what’s coming and on Table of Contents to see the whole book (only the sections in red are available for now.) Happy reading!