Postcards from Maui

If you lug your paints with you all the way to Maui you really do have to take them out at some point between the bobbing around in warm ocean water, watching whales, and scaling volcanoes to put brush to paper.

 Maui Palms and Surf - Watercolor on Paper - Maui 2012

Having gone from the snowy Pacific Northwest to the artsy, surfer town of Paia on Maui this winter was a real treat if not an outright miracle. The local beach was a highlight of my trip and the visual elements that struck me the most were the tall graceful vertical trunks of the Palm Trees standing against the rolling horizontal waves of the surf.

 Maui Valley with Palms and Surf - Watercolor on Paper - Maui 2012

Another dramatic visual was the plunging symmetrical triangle shape of certain mountains and valleys. In this painting I played with bringing those shapes into my palm/surf juxtaposition. 

 Painting Palm Trees on the Kitchen Table at Poni Place

I always like working at a kitchen table best and the nice thing about this kitchen table is that it had a big circulating fan right above it. Watercolor is great for travel. All you need is an old tuna can for water and as I discovered rummaging through my friend's recyclables, an inside out milk carton makes a fine watercolor palette.

The Craft of Making Paint

At M. Graham & Co. artists' colors are created using time honored natural ingredients. I'm told by Diana Graham, “We looked back into history and found the ingredients that painters used when they made their own paint.  Nut oil was preferred because it yellows and cracks less than linseed.  Blackberry honey crystallizes less than others.” 

 Painters' Assistant Grinding Pigments, Parmigianino, Red Chalk on Paper, Italian, 1530s

Watercolor and gouache are normally made with some form of sugar. Today that usually means the ubiquitous corn syrup that is also in so much of our processed food. M. Graham & Co. use blackberry honey in their watercolor paints. As a painter who identifies with the Pacific Northwest I can think of nothing more romantic than painting with blackberry honey. As for oil paints made with walnut oil, on the company's Material Safety Data Sheet I especially like the part where it says, WALNUT OIL – Ingestion can produce a laxative effect, a hazard I'm willing to risk!

M. Graham & Company: Makers of Professional Artists' Colors and Mediums

Photo courtesy Diana Graham

The Grahams' backgrounds in the art business brought them together over the phone. Now in a shop nestled in the hop fields of Oregon the Grahams take a craftsman's approach to creating quality artists' materials, “Individually made, we create our colors a few hundred tubes at a time. Days, not hours are spent slowly coaxing its own distinctive nature from each pigment until the richness inherent in each is fully developed.” Overseeing all of this fine work is Annie, the shop cat. Once a neighborhood orphan, she now reigns supreme. You know that a company has high standards when they have a cat in a top executive position!

Annie the M. Graham & Co. Shop Cat

Photo courtesy Diana Graham