Artwork / 2004 / Loki Chris

For this painting from the Trickster Project, I did something I thought I would never do again. I used tube black. When I was 16 years old, I took a painting class in which I was taught to mix burnt umber and phthalo blue to create a richer and more variable black. For seven years, I did just that. But when I came to this painting, I was looking for pure black and white, so tube black seemed a logical choice.

Though I still only rarely use carbon black or bone black instead of my mixture, I will occasionally introduce different pigments into my standard palette of burnt umber, phthalo blue, phthalo green, cadmium yellow medium, quinacridone gold, quinacridone magenta, and titanium white. It may seem strange, but this painting had me trying out all kinds of new pigments.