painting Archives - Kate Derosier

What pigments are in Gamblin oil paints?

I often find myself in an art store holding a new tube of paint, trying to decide if I really need it or if I should just get by with the ones I already own. One of the things I like about Gamblin paints is that their website provides all the information you need to answer that question: there’s the “Color Temperature and Value List“, which is a very helpful table listing the Munsell color values for all their paints; and the Gamblin Artist’s Oil Colors page has really good photos of color swatches, little blurbs about what is special or useful about each paint, and information on pigment, vehicle, and lightfastness.

However, despite having all the information I want, the swatch page isn’t organized the way I’d like it to be. The information is all in little pop-ups when you click on the swatches, instead of in a table, so you can’t ctrl+F to look for something. I keep finding myself scrolling around, opening and closing pop-ups, whispering to myself, “Ok, so Olive Green is a mix of PBr 7, PY 75, PB 29… PBr is Burnt Umber, maybe? But which yellow and blue are those…?”

So, I decided to make my own table and put it online. All the information below is from the Gamblin website, either the Gamblin Artist’s Oil Colors page or the New Colors 2026 page. I’ve broken it into two tables: one for single pigment paints, and a second for multi-pigment paints. I used the Excel export as web page function to make these tables, so they’re not the most beautiful/responsive html ever, but you should be able to ctrl+F to search for a pigment code.

SINGLE PIGMENT PAINTS || MULTI-PIGMENT PAINTS

Gamblin Single Pigment Paints

This table lists the Gamblin single pigment Artist’s Oil Colors, as of February 2026. They’re in the same order as on the Gamblin website, with the exception of Cobalt Turquoise, a new color that isn’t on the Gamblin Artist’s Oil Colors page yet (so I guessed where it would fit in). For each paint, I’ve given a color swatch (I used a color picker on the real swatches to get something fairly representative), the name of the paint, the pigment code, the chemical name of the pigment (where provided), a brief description of the color, whether it’s opaque (O), transparent (T), or semi-transparent (S-T), and its series (higher series numbers are more expensive).

All of these paints are made with a single pigment, so in some sense they’re each unique, but some can be pretty well approximated by mixing others. For example, it’s possible to mix a color that is identical (to my eyes) to Yellow Ochre from Burnt Umber and Hansa Yellow Medium. Gamblin mentions a couple colors as being particularly difficult to approximate from other colors: Permanent Orange, Cobalt Violet, Cobalt Blue, and Cobalt Green.

Not included in this table are the Reclaimed Earth Colors, as they are limited edition, but I believe those are all iron oxide.

Swatch	Paint name	Pigment code	Pigment name	Color description	Transparency	Series
#FADC47	Cadmium Lemon	PY 35	CP cadmium zinc sulfide	Coolest cadmium yellow	O	4
#EBD132	Cadmium Yellow Light	PY 35	Concentrated cadmium zinc sulfide	Cool yellow	O	4
#DFC103	Cadmium Yellow Medium	PY 37	Concentrated cadmium sulfide	Warm yellow	O	4
#EE9F00	Cadmium Yellow Deep	PY 37	Concetrated cadmium sulfide	Warm yellow	O	4
#DDC751	Nickel Titanate Yellow	PY 53	Nickel antimony titanium yellow	Cool muted yellow	O	3
#FDDD00	Hansa Yellow Light	PY 3	Arylide yellow	Coolest yellow	S-T	3
#DCB100	Hansa Yellow Medium	PY 74	Arylide yellow	Warm yellow	S-T	3
#FBA800	Hansa Yellow Deep	PY 75	Arylide yellow	Warmest hansa yellow	S-T	3
#E86700	India Yellow	PY 83	Diarylide yellow	Warm yellow, bright glaze	T	3
#E87902	Cadmium Orange	PO 20	Concentrated cadmium sulfo-selenide	Warm medium orange	O	4
#E45601	Cadmium Orange Deep	PO 20	Concentrated cadmium sulfo-selenide	Warm deep orange	O	4
#E66700	Permanent Orange	PO 62	Monoacetolone	Warm bright orange, can’t mix	S-T	3
#650003	Alizarin Crimson	PR 83	Synthetic 1:2 dihydroxyanthraquinone on alumina	Cool red, poor lightfastness	T	3
#691115	Alizarin Crimson Permanent	PR 177	Anthraquinone red	Cool red	T	3
#E52B02	Cadmium Red Light	PR 108	Concentrated cadmium sulfo-selenide	Warm red	O	5
#D80001	Cadmium Red Medium	PR 108	Concentrated cadmium sulfo-selenide	Warm red	O	5
#AC0001	Cadmium Red Deep	PR 108	Concentrated cadmium sulfo-selenide	Warm red	O	5
#C00000	Napthol Red	PR 112	Napthol AS-D	Warm red	S-T	2
#D70101	Napthol Scarlet	PR 188	Napthol AS-OL	Warm red	S-T	2
#A70000	Perylene Red	PR 149	Perylene	Warm red, brght glaze	T	2
#84002B	Quinacridone Magenta	PR 122	Quinacridone Y	Coolest red	T	3
#84001F	Quinacridone Red	PV 19*	Quinacridone red b	Cool red	T	3
#4E091E	Quinacridone Violet	PV 19*	Quinacridone Violet	Cool red / warmest violet	T	3
#4F006D	Cobalt Violet	PV 14	Cobalt phosphate	Warm violet, can’t mix	T	6
#3E255A	Ultramarine Violet	PV 15	Complex silicate of sodium & aluminum with sulfur	Warmer than Co Violet, cooler than Mn Violet	T	2
#431176	Dioxazine Purple	PV 23	Carbazol dioxazine	Coolest violet, intense glaze	T	2
#4A093E	Manganese Violet	PV 16	Manganese ammonium phosphate	Warm violet	S-T	3
#0F6BAA	Cerulean Blue	PB 36	Oxides of cobalt & tin	Cool blue, muted tints	O	6
#002786	Cobalt Blue	PB 28	Oxides of cobalt & aluminum	Warm blue, can’t mix	S-T	5
#42A59D	Cobalt Teal	PB 28	Oxides of cobalt & aluminum	Cool green-blue	O	4
#00706A	Cobalt Turquoise	PB 36		Cool green-blue	O	4
#088DBE	Manganese Blue Hue	PB 15:4	Copper phthalocyanine	Cool blue, bright glaze	T	2
#002358	Phthalo Blue	PB 15:2	Copper phthalocyanine	Warm blue, intense tints	T	2
#1D2B4B	Prussian Blue	PB 27:1	Ferri-ammonium ferrocyanide	Cool blue, muted tints	S-T	2
#062254	Indanthrone Blue	PB 60	Indanthrone	Warm blue	S-T	3
#041A5D	Ultramarine Blue	PB 29	Complex silicate of sodium & aluminum with sulfur	Warm blue, bright glaze	T	2
#214A31	Cobalt Green	PG 19	Oxides of cobalt and zinc	Cool green, muted tints, can’t mix	S-T	4
#054735	Phthalo Green	PG 7	Chlorinated copper phthalocyanine	Cool green, intense tints	T	2
#064C26	Phthalo Emerald	PG 36	Chlorinated and bromated copper phthalocyanine	Warm green, intense tints	T	2
#1C382E	Viridian	PG 18	Hydrated chromium oxide	Cool green, muted tints	T	4
#4B5F2C	Chromium Oxide Green	PG 17	Anhydrous chromium sesquioxide	Warm green, muted tints	O	3
#56560F	Green Gold	PY 129	Azomethine Yellow 56	Warm green, cool yellow as glaze/tint	S-T	4
#662C20	Burnt Sienna	PBr 7	Calcined natural iron oxide	Warm brown	S-T	1
#3C2118	Burnt Umber	PBr 7	Calcined natural iron oxide, containing manganese	Warm brown	S-T	1
#902714	India Red	PR 101	Synthetic red iron oxide (bluish shade)	Warm brown	O	1
#872A00	Venetian Red	PR 101	Synthetic red iron oxide (yellowish shade)	Warm brown	O	1
#AF682A	Raw Sienna	PBr 7	Natural iron oxide	Warm brown	S-T	1
#3A2E21	Raw Umber	PBr 7	Natural iron oxide containing manganese	Cool brown	S-T	1
#956100	Yellow Ochre	PY 43	Natural hydrated iron oxide	Warm brown	S-T	1
#5D3400	Transparent Earth Yellow	PY 42	Transparent Mars Yellow	Cool brown	T	3
#390D0C	Transparent Earth Red	PR 101	Transparent Mars Red	Warm brown	T	3
#0C0A0B	Ivory Black	PBk 9	Bone black	Neutral black, slightly warm as glaze	S-T	1
#100A0A	Mars Black	PBk 11	Synthetic black iron oxide	Cool masstone, but slightly warm tint	O	1
#0C0707	Black Spinel	PBk 29	Copper chromite black spinel	Matte finish black	O	4
#BEB58E	Titanium Buff	PW 6	Titanium dioxide	Warm yellow-grey	O	1
#E9E9E9	Titanium White	PW 6	Titanium dioxide	Most opaque white	O	1
#F0F0F0	Radiant White	PW 6	Titanium dioxide	Brightest white (safflower instead of linseed oil)	O	2
#E4E4E4	Flake White Replacement	PW 6	Titanium dioxide	Replacement for lead white, unique texture	O	1
#E6E6E6	Zinc White	PW 4	Zinc oxide	Most transparent white	S-T	1
#EDEDED	Fast Dry Titanium White	PW 6	Titanium dioxide	Faster drying titanium white	O	1
#C28153	Copper	PM 2**	Copper powder	Metallic copper	O	4
#948055	Pale Gold	PM 2	Bronze powder	Metallic green-gold	O	4
#C2935C	Rich Gold	PM 2	Bronze powder	Metallic rose gold	O	4
#BBBAB5	Silver	PM 1	Aluminum powder	Metallic silver	O	4

* Both Quinacridone Red and Quiacridone Violet have their pigment listed as PV 19, although the chemical names given are different. I don’t know why this is.

** Copper, Pale Gold, and Rich Gold all have pigment listed as PM 2, although Copper is described as “copper powder” while the others are described as “bronze powder” — possibly because bronze is mostly copper?

Gamblin multi-pigment paints

This table lists the Gamblin multi-pigment paints, as of February 2026. As with the single pigment paints, I used the ordering from the Gamblin website, except for the new 2026 colors, which I worked in wherever made the most sense. For each paint, I’ve given a color swatch, the name of the paint, the pigment codes, what I’m calling the “parent” paints (i.e. the single pigment paints for each of the pigments in the mix), a brief description of the color, whether it’s opaque (O), transparent (T), or semi-transparent (S-T), and its series (higher series numbers are more expensive).

In principle, you could mix each of the paints in the multi-pigment table yourself from the parent paints listed. Some artists see multi-pigment paints as wasted space in your paint box / on your palette, but depending on how you work, the consistent mix and saved time might be worth it. For most of these colors, the swatches on the Gamblin website have little blurbs to explain why the mix might be useful.

Not included in this table is Torrit Grey, which is a reclaimed paint that includes every pigment. The exact color of Torrit Grey varies; Gamblin says it often leans green, but my particular tube is a warm gray.

Swatch	Paint name	Pigment codes	Parent paints	Color description	Transparency	Series
#D3C502	Cadmium Chartreuse	PY 35, PG 36	Cadmium Lemon, Phthalo Emerald	Cool green-yellow	O	4
#E04004	Transparent Orange	PY 83, PR 149	India Yellow, Perylene Red	Warm orange, bright glaze	T	3
#E84132	Coral	PO 62, PR 188, PW 6	Permanent Orange, Napthol Scarlet, Titanium White	Warm orange-red	O	2
#50000B	Brown Pink	PR 101, PR 149	Transparent Earth Red, Perylene Red	Warm red, bright tints	T	2
#005FA5	Cerulean Blue Hue	PW 6, PB 15:4	Titanium White, Manganese Blue Hue	Cool blue	O	2
#1387CF	Sevres Blue	PB 15:4, PB 15:2	Manganese Blue Hue, Phthalo Blue	Cool blue	O	2
#1D2025	Indigo	PB 15:2, PV 15, PBr 7	Phthalo Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Burnt Umber	Cool blue-black	S-T	3
#0F282E	Phthalo Turquoise	PB 15:2, PG 7	Phthalo Blue, Phthalo Green	Cool turquoise, strong tints	T	2
#374F51	Alpine Blue-Green	PB 28, PBr 7, PW 6	Cobalt Blue, Burnt Umber, Titanium White	Cool green	S-T	2
#AEB301	Cadmium Green	PY 35, PG 18	Cadmium Yellow Light, Viridian	Warm yellow-green	O	4
#299102	Permanent Green Light	PY 74, PG 7	Hansa Yellow Medium, Phthalo Green	Warm green	S-T	2
#0D8042	Emerald Green	PG 36, PW 6, PY 74	Phthalo Emerald, Titanium White, Hansa Yellow Medium	Warm green	S-T	2
#1D2C05	Sap Green	PY 83, PB 15:2	India Yellow, Phthalo Blue	Warm green	T	2
#465830	Forest Floor Green	PY 37, PB 29	Cadmium Yellow Medium, Ultramarine Blue	Warm green	S-T	2
#52622D	Bush Green	PY 35, PY 43, PB 29	Cadmium Yellow Light, Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine Blue	Warm green	S-T	2
#978C10	Canopy Green	PY 35, PY 83, PB 29	Cadmium Yellow Light, India Yellow, Ultramarine Blue	Warm yellow-green	S-T	2
#4E472A	Terre Verte	PBr 7, PG 18	Burnt Umber, Viridian	Warm brown-green, muted tints	T	2
#3A3712	Olive Green	PBr 7, PY 75, PB 29	Burnt Umber, Hansa Yellow Deep, Ultramarine Blue	Warm brown-green	S-T	2
#E6C06C	Naples Yellow	PW 6, PY 75, PY 43	Titanium White, Hansa Yellow Deep, Yellow Ochre	Warm pale brown/earthy yellow	O	2
#E0B188	Naples Orange	PW 6, PY 43, PR 188	Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Napthol Scarlet	Warm pale brown/earthy orange	O	2
#B67926	Gold Ochre	PY 43, PY 83	Yellow Ochre, India Yellow	Warm light brown/earthy yellow	T	2
#440502	Transparent Earth Orange	PY 42, PR 101	Transparent Earth Yellow, Transparent Earth Red	Warm brown/earthy orange	T	3
#3C2C24	Asphaltum	PR 101, PB 29	Transparent Earth Red, Ultramarine Blue	Warm brown	T	3
#161010	Van Dyke Brown	PBr 7, PB 29	Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue	Warmest black	S-T	1
#000000	Chromatic Black	PG 36, PV 19	Phthalo Emerald, Quinacridone Red	Neutral black	T	2
#0E0C11	Payne’s Grey	PBr 7, PB 29	Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue	Coolest black	T	2
#C7C7C7	Portland Grey Light	PW 6, PW 4, PBr 7, PBk 11	Titanium White, Zinc White, Burnt Umber, Mars Black	Neutral grey, Munsell Value 8	O	2
#919191	Portland Grey Medium	PW 6, PW 4, PBr 7, PBk 11	Titanium White, Zinc White, Burnt Umber, Mars Black	Neutral grey, Munsell Value 6	O	2
#5E5E5E	Portland Grey Deep	PW 6, PW 4, PBr 7, PBk 11	Titanium White, Zinc White, Burnt Umber, Mars Black	Neutral grey, Munsell Value 4	O	2
#C8B4AD	Portland Warm Grey	PW 6, PR 101, PBk 11	Titanium White, Transparent Earth Red, Mars Black	Warm red-gray	O	2
#BAC0C6	Portland Cool Grey	PW 6, PB 29, PBk 11	Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue, Mars Black	Cool blue-gray	O	2
#F2E2C1	Warm White	PW 6, PY 75, PO 62, PW 4	Titanium White, Hansa Yellow Deep, Permanent Orange, Zinc White	Warmest white/cream	O	1
#E2E9F1	Cool White	PW 6, PB 15:2, PW 4	Titanium White, Phthalo Blue, Zinc White	Coolest white	O	1
#E9E9E9	Titanium Zinc White	PW 6, PW 4	Titanium White, Zinc White	White	O	1
#EEDE86	Radiant Lemon	PY 3, PW 6	Hansa Yellow Light, Titanium White	Cool pale yellow	O	2
#FCD669	Radiant Yellow	PY 83, PW 6	India Yellow, Titanium White	Warm pale yellow	O	2
#ED9A51	Radiant Orange	PO 62, PY 75, PW 6	Permanent Orange, Hansa Yellow Deep, Titanium White	Warm pale orange	O	2
#EA9C92	Radiant Red	PR 149, PW 6	Perylene Red, Titanium White	Warm pale red	O	2
#DC94AA	Radiant Magenta	PV 19, PW 6	Quinacridone Red, Titanium White	Cool pale red	O	2
#C4ADC7	Radiant Violet	PV 23, PW 6	Dioxazine Purple, Titanium White	Cool pale violet	O	2
#BECBDE	Radiant Blue	PB 29, PW 6	Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White	Warm pale blue	O	2
#9AC5BE	Radiant Turquoise	PG 7, PB 15, PW 6	Phthalo Green, Phthalo Blue, Titanium White	Cool pale blue	O	2
#A1CB8B	Radiant Green	PG 36, PY 3, PW 6	Phthalo Emerald, Hansa Yellow Light, Titanium White	Cool pale green	O	2
#8AC747	Radiant Warm Green	PY 3, PG 36, PW 6	Hansa Yellow Light, Phthalo Emerald, Titanium White	Warm pale green	O	2
#39A9E5	Azure	PB 15:2, PB 29, PW 6	Phthalo Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White	Warm pale blue	O	2
#D4A4A2	Shell Pink	PR 188, PY 3, PW 6	Napthol Scarlet, Hansa Yellow Light, Titanium White	Warm pale red	O	2
#4B8FF2	Kings Blue	PB 29, PW 6	Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White	Warm pale blue	O	2

Back to: SINGLE PIGMENT PAINTS || TOP OF PAGE

I hope this is helpful to at least one person other than myself! Happy painting!

How do I make a sharp edge with oil paint?

Last year I started painting with oil paints again, after almost a decade of only using acrylic and gouache. I had gotten used to making solid, crisp blocks of color with gouache, and I found myself wondering how I could make a sharp edge with oil paint.

I feel a little silly making a blog post about this, because it’s something I still struggle with, but after a lot of web-searching, forum-reading, and experimentation, I’m getting much cleaner lines and edges than before – as evidenced by the progress photo below, where you can see that the blue shape of the dress is pretty crisp against the magenta underpainting. The curve of the belly especially is much sharper than anything I was getting a year ago! So, here’s a post summarizing what I’ve changed about my painting in my quest to get a crisp, sharp edge with oil paint.

Photograph of an in-progress oil painting, showing several blocks of color with sharp edges.

1. Make sure previous layers are dry enough

This is the big one, and the one I didn’t see discussed when I was searching for answers – perhaps it’s obvious to most people! But after some experimenting, I realized that my main problem was that I just wasn’t letting the prior layers dry enough.

My previous experience with oil paint was when taking elective classes in college, and in that setting, we would usually have a week or two to finish an assignment, which meant they could only dry for a couple days in between painting sessions. When I started using oil paint again, it took me a while to realize that I could let paintings sit for much longer, and that in fact, I needed to let them dry for longer if I wanted to get a really sharp edge with the next layer.

Obviously the specific amount of time you have to wait is going to depend on which medium or solvent you use, how much of it you use, how thick your paint is, and even what the temperature/humidity/air circulation is like where you’re storing your paintings, but to get a crisp edge, you want any previous layers of paint to be really dry. Not “well, I guess I can probably paint over this,” not just barely dry to the touch – it needs to be dry enough that the older paint is not going to blend with the new paint (unless you drown it in solvent, which you’re not going to do). I’m now often letting paintings wait for 2 weeks (or even a month) if I want to get a really sharp edge.

3. Rest your hand on your canvas

Since your previous layers are really dry (see tip #1 above), you can rest your hand right on your canvas as you work! This will give you more stability and control. If you plan carefully, working from the center out and rotating, raising, or lowering your canvas as needed, you can probably find a safe place to rest your hand for almost any spot you want to paint. If you’ve got a situation where you really can’t find somewhere to rest your hand, there’s also a tool called a mahlstick that can help (and it’s easy to DIY, I have just used a yardstick and paper towel before).

3. Hold your brush at the correct angle

This is another one that might be obvious to everyone but me, but I’m going to spell it out for anyone else whose intuition is leading them astray!

A paintbrush is not a pencil. When using a flat or bright brush shape, you should not be holding the brush with the line of the tip perpendicular to the edge you want to make and drawing along it with the outer edge of the brush. Although this movement might feel intuitive, it’s not going to make a clean edge because any variation in the pressure of the brush against the canvas is going to spread the bristles out and make your edge wobbly! Instead, you should should be lining up the tip of the brush parallel to the line you want to paint, and then making short strokes away from the edge.

The photos below show an example where I’m filling in a big block of light blue, following the curve of a white line I had previously sketched in. On the left, I’m holding the brush correctly: the end of the brush is tangent to the white line I’m following, and my hand is positioned to make a clean stroke away from the edge I’m creating (although if I wasn’t trying to take a photograph with my other hand, I would probably start even closer to the white line, or even a little on top of it). Lots of little strokes like this will allow me to fill in the shape right up to the line, and leave a very sharp edge. On the right, I am holding my brush incorrectly: if I push down to make a mark, the bristles will spread, and it will be difficult to have enough control to keep them off the white line.

Two photos of a hand holding a paintbrush and painting an edge with oil paint, demonstrating the hand/brush positions described above.

4. Use a round brush for thin, crisp lines

A flat or bright brush works well for making a straight edge or filling in the outside of a curve (as in the example above), but what if you want fill in the inside of a curve? In this situation, if you line up the end of your brush tangent to the edge you want to make, the outside edges of your brush might cross the line you’re trying to follow.

If the curvature isn’t too great, a smaller flat brush might do okay, but if it’s a very small area or a tight curve, you’re going to want to switch to a round brush. With a round brush, you want to use just the tip, and you can go along the edge (like using a pencil).

If you want to make a particularly thin line, having a round brush with especially long hairs helps. I have seen people recommend “rigger” brushes (as far as I know that’s just a long round brush), but I ended up buying a pinstriping brush and a longliner brush by Kafka Design (link to Blick, but I’m sure they’re sold elsewhere too). What I like about these is that they’re designed with short handles, so you can use them with the end of the handle resting on your hand between your thumb and index finger. My hand is not as steady as I wish it was, and I find that holding the brush that way helps.

If you look near the middle of the photo below (or a little bit up from the middle), you can find a very, very thin pink line that I painted with my Kafka Design longliner brush. This is a closeup photo of an 8 inch by 10 inch panel (the sketched in lines were made by recently sharpened colored pencil), so that pink line is incredibly thin. I’m still working on getting the consistent pressure needed to make a constantt line width, but I do think these long hair / short handle brushes were a big upgrade.

Photograph of an in progress oil painting showing several blocks of color, including a couple edged with very thin lines.

5. Use tape

It’s pretty common to see acrylic painters use masking tape to get extra crisp, straight lines – turns out, you can actually do that with oil paint too! I haven’t tried putting tape straight on a prepared canvas or panel, and I suspect it wouldn’t work well on top of thick textured paint, but masking tape on top of a thin, dry layer of oil paint has worked fine for me. Just make sure your previous layers are extremely dry before putting it on (funny how this whole blog post comes back to that one tip…), and take it off as soon as you can.

Photograph of the same artwork as the previous image, but taken from an angle to better show the texture of the paint.

Process blog: Attachment (illuminated journal entry)

Over the past couple months, I’ve been teaching myself how to do art in the style of illuminated manuscripts from medieval Europe. (That’s actually a huge category, which covers hundreds of years and many cultures and therefore many many different styles, but you know what I mean…)

I started by copying pages out of random books – anything I could find a good reproduction of – but I’d been wanting to do something fully original, and when I read the call for art for HOME, the collaborative show between LexArt and LexHab, some things I’d been thinking about came together into the idea to do a piece about missing places that no longer exist in the way you remember them (specifically, my grandparents’ home).

I started by writing a sort of journal entry, or maybe a sort of poetic personal essay? I don’t want to say I fictionalized anything, but I did maybe magnify a couple things for effect. The hardest part was editing it down so that I could fit it on a single page (thank you to my friend Nerissa who helped me with the initial round of cuts and edits!). I knew more or less what I wanted to do with the illustrations, and roughly where in the text I wanted them to fall, but it took a lot of work to figure out how to make the text fit properly. I wrote it all out four times on regular paper to work out the line spacing, quill size, and things like when to say “can’t” vs. “cannot”. On one version, I also did a draft of the illustrations, which you can see below:

Photo of a rough draft of "Attachment", made on regular paper. The size of the final paper and guidelines for the writing are drawn in calligraphy, a draft of the text has been written with quill & ink, rough drafts of the illustrations are painted in. There's a big empty space, a spot where the black text has been written on top of with blue, and lots of pencil notes in the margins.

The real version was pretty straightforward by the time I got around to it, although it was a little stressful to worry about not smudging my work. I wrote the text, let it dry, and then inked the illustrations. Perhaps this is a good time to mention that the script is mostly based on Caroline minuscule, although I did make it my own a little.

Two photographs next to each other in a photo collage. Both are progress shots of "Attachment". The photo on the left shows the text written with quill & ink, with empty spaces and some pencil lines for the illustrations. In the photo on the right, the illustrations have been outlined in ink. In both photos, the parchment paper is taped down on a drawing board and various bits and pieces like paper towel and scratch paper are visible in the background.

After the ink dried, I very carefully erased my pencil marks, and then started painting. I still find it quite challenging to get an even texture with the egg tempera paint – I feel like there must be some kind of trick to it that I haven’t figured out yet. I made the brown extra eggy because it made it streaky and shiny in a way that does look quite a lot like wood stain.

Two photographs combined in a photo collage. Both are progress shots of "Attachment", showing the paper taped down on a drawing board. In the photo on the left, the paintings have begun to be filled in, although none of the green areas are painted yet. In the photograph on the right, the illustrations have been filled in with paint, and a border has been drawn in ink but not yet painted.

After the paint is on, I went back in with the ink to go over any lines that got a bit covered or didn’t look dark enough, and used white ink to add some highlights. I found this piece very challenging to photograph – the angled shot is more accurate in terms of color and paint texture.

Top down photograph of "Attachment", finished but still taped to the drawing board. There are two columns of black text written with a quill pen in vaguely medieval handwriting, spot illustrations of (1) a landscape with green hills, red house, blue sky, dramatic clouds, (2) a secretary desk, (3) a long horizontal landscape of green hills and a red muddy river. Around the text and illustrations is a frame made of lines and vines.

I was pretty pleased with how this piece came out. You can see a high resolution scan of the final version here, and here it is on the wall in the gallery with its friends at the HOME show:

Photograph of a wall in a gallery, showing four artworks hanging on a white wall. The one at top center is "Attachment", the subject of this blog post, in a white mat and narrow black frame.

Details:

“Attachment”, 2025, 11 inches by 14 inches

Materials & tools:

Pergamenata parchment paper
McCaffery’s Penman’s Ink in black (an iron gall ink), white, and indigo blue
Quill pens for the lettering (I bought these precut ones and modified the nibs)
G-nib dip pen for the lines in the illustrations
Sennelier egg tempera paint in carmine, red brown, cadmium yellow light genuine, cobalt blue genuine, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, Van Dyck brown, and zinc white
Paintbrushes (Princeton Neptune 2 round, Da Vinci Cosmotop Spin 4 round, Da Vinci Cosmotop Spin 3/0 round)
Pro drafting tape
Pencil
Omnigrid ruler
Eraser

Painted post

The other week I participated in a fun community art project! The art center in my town supplied blank wooden posts. We had a couple weeks to decorate them and return them, and then they were put on display by the town’s visitor center.

I have never done a group project quite like this before, but I thought I’d give it a try. The biggest challenge for me was working with exterior paint on wood – I don’t have much experience with either of those materials, and I found it tricky to get clean lines. The white paint especially was quite runny no matter how much I stirred it. It didn’t give even coverage, and even when I used painter’s tape, it had a tendency to leak through. I corrected it as best I could in the time I had, and I think in the end it looks really good (as long as you don’t get too close)!