Until I started to paint, I never gave much thought to how colours were created.  Of course I had my favourites, but I kept running into trouble whenever I tried to put together an wardrobe, if my closet could be dignified with the name.  Inevitably, those two "turquoise" items didn’t match let alone play nicely together, and reds were even worse.  Sometimes I could get away with it by choosing a plaid or a tweed but I doubt that I was the only person lost with no hope of exact colour coordination.  

It wasn't until I began to paint that the penny dropped:  there were simply endless possibilities of colour mixing.  Perhaps the biggest surprise was black.  I had been taught that it was the combination of all colours, but then so was brown.  When I began painting in oil it became clearer that black lacks white, while brown invites it, even if it's just a bit.  But black, the "darkest dark," has an ace in the hole:  its tremendous value when set next to the "lightest light" to highlight a focal point.  Easy peezy.  Black's a star.

But not so fast!  Nobody  I know simply buys a tube of black and uses it indiscriminately.  For one thing,  even there lurk dragons — did you want “lamp” black, “ivory” black, “mars” black or “perylene” black?  Each has a specific use.  More importantly, simply applying black out of the tube is a recipe for fatal boredom.  The best paintings contain dancing moody blacks.  What that means is that while the three transparent primaries certainly can produce a perfectly balanced telephone black, it’s much more interesting to tweak the mix so that one or two of them dominate in a way that complements the surrounding elements.  

This is what’s known as “chromatic black.”  For example, I have a weakness for dark backgrounds in botanical painting;  they pop the main attraction forward because most flowers are on the bright side. But I am slowly learning to toggle the chroma accordingly.  Daffodils now ask me for a purple-black to nestle in, red roses like a green-black, while marigolds positively sashay though blue-black.  At times I will mix an ultramarine blue with burnt sienna for warm dark; using phlalo blue and burnt umber produces a cooler dark.  There are as many recipes for deep darks as there are good cooks.

The painter John Anderson uses the term “flavour” to describe his chromatic approach to painting.  You will never find a pure white in a work of his; that bright section might have a tinge of blue or cream. And even in a night scene, his darkest darks, probably tree trunks,  may turn out to be purple, although they will read as black to the casual viewer.  

You will also find some flavours in my painting below;  as usual, the blacks are built from many layers of transparent pigments, but they do vary substantially.  So now you have some homework.  Go to www.google.com/culturalinstitute/project/art-project    and mosey through it, looking for paintings with black backgrounds.  Choose one and expand it until you can see the brushstrokes.  What read at first as black will reveal itself to be a varying mixture and one, moreover, which will have a definite “flavour.”  Enjoy! 

Small admission:  yes, I still have trouble finding exact matches in my closet. But it all else fails at least now I can mix the colours I want and dress a self portrait in sartorial splendor!  For that matter, I guess I could be taller too....

Sidenote:   I love the name of Swarthmore College because it reminds me of an old friend who took delight in telling people that she did her undergraduate work at "Black black."

I humbly and sincerely retract my criticism of hot avian dudes last week.  I knew I was wrong, but advancing the argument trumped my field biology.  And the events of this week have rubbed my nose in it.
Where to start?  Well, R.B. (who wouldn’t use initials when your given name is “Red-Bellied”?) has been heard so often that we began to pay closer to attention to him and made a wonderful discovery.  Jon’s sharp eyes caught him fifty feet up on one of those geriatric black locust trees, only to see R.B. disappear.  A closer look revealed a small hole and - abracadabra - a cavity nest!!  Well, that explained why I could never spot him even though I had heard his four distinct raspy quonks immediately before: he was saying “Honey, I’m home!”  

So now I am developing a permanent kink in my neck from reclining under said tree, focusing my long lens on that exciting front door.  Doesn’t it turn out that R.B. is not only a faithful husband, but an excellent provider as well.  Mr and Mrs take turns in the cavity but the nestlings must be old enough to leave, because often both parents are gone at once.  They return within a few minutes with something juicy, alive and dark — a chrysalis, perhaps -  and about as big as their beaks can manage.  I feel like a proud granny.

Would you please extend my apologies to Mr. Chickadee, Mr. Tanager and Mr. Oriole as well.  In my house, the standard apology (always delivered under duress)  is “I am a stunned pickle.  You were right and I was wrong.  I will never doubt your word again.”  Consider it said, fellas. 

By way of making amends, here is a photo of a happy marriage:

 I have a bit of a crush on a red-head who’s living on our street.  He dresses beautifully in greys and blacks.  Sometimes he drops by for a bite to eat;  sometimes he just hangs around.  I think he’s high most of the time.  We try to ignore one another:  I pretend to be weeding and he pretends to be digging larvae out of our post-mature (i.e. dying) 90 foot black locust trees.  But there’s no avoiding it:  he KNOWS he's the best-looking woodpecker I have ever seen and I live in hope that he’s noticed me too.  His downy and hairy cousins, more frequent visitors to the peanut holder, are nice but seem a little ragged by comparison because boy, he’s SMOOTH.  I find myself wandering out to the garden on any excuse in hopes of catching a glimpse of him.  I even love his croaky voice.

I grant you that this time of the year feathered dudes are pretty gorgeous in general.  While their mates hunker down on nests and try to fade into the woodwork, these snazzy husbands flaunt fluorescents and ratchet up the volume.  They are so busy being gorgeous and assertive that they won’t even pose for a photo op.  The saucy red epaulets of the ubiquitous blackbird continue to elude my camera even though his raucous calls make him impossible to ignore, while Mister Canary’s pure azo yellow flashes past just in time to grab a sunflower seed and he’s gone too.  Who's a girl to paint?


But while I am briefly enamoured with these hot dudes, my real love and admiration goes to the mensches of all species.  I was thinking about this last week during a celebration of life for an lifelong friend (our families have been close for a century).  Fred was a self-described Canada goose who mated for life. When Gina, his beloved wife, succumbed to early onset Alzheimer’s, whether he drove, cycled or walked, Fred went to spend the supper hour with her every day for decades.  He was a wonderful man whose character revealed itself not only in intelligence, but in honour.  I know my  anthropomorphic socks are showing and I don't care.  I choose goose.

P.S.  In the absence of a Canada goose painting, I offer a swan whose gender is indeterminate, just as it should be.  Fred, we will miss you.