Casein

I don't know how it happened, but I started to get interested in an opaque medium called casein. Paint is applied like oil or acrylic and has similar characteristics. It is thinned with water but doesn't harden on the pallete the way acrylic does, so it sounded ideal. There is not much information on this fairly obscure medium, so I started reading books on oil painting technique. The self-taught approach kicked into research mode as I read everything I could from the local libraries. I was peeking over the fence so to speak into the land of an entirely different way to paint. It was a strange country where a foreign language was spoken. Impasto? Scumbling? Gesso?

After the research, it was time to try it. Theory and practice. Both are good. As I had done in the past, I turned to the work of an artist I admired, in this case acclaimed oil painter Caroline Jasper. Although I was working in casein, the method was the same, and I copied her piece entitled "Expectations". She (and therefore I) started this painting by painting everything red. What a strange thing it was to dab thick white paint over a dark surface. But fun too. See that little mistake? Well now you see it, now you don't...ha ha ha.

This wasn't Kansas anymore.