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      Here in the high desert of New Mexico, spring is finally starting to arrive and some of my favorite flowers to paint are making their appearance once again. Also coming up are the bundles of blue flax scattered around the yard. Although this amazing wildflower does come in other colors (and I recall having some red at one point), blue is the more common color and those are the ones that reappear in my yard year after year. Sometimes it shows up in the middle of a walkway or in the oddest places but I always enjoy the splashes of ultramarine it adds to the garden.

     It feels like an affirmation of some sort to watch the flax reemerge each spring,  since it represents such a critical part of the oil painting process. Flax is synonymous with linseed, so this is where the oil comes from that our pigments are ground in. In other words, the linseed oil in your paint originates from the same place as the flax seed and flax oil you will find in the health food section of your local grocery store. That's pretty much all our artists' oil colors are -- linseed oil and pigment. The correlation between flax and painting doesn't stop there though. While linseed oil is favored as a binder for pigment due to its strength and flexibility when dry, the rest of the plant has traditionally been valued for the stem fibers that are woven into linen --- long prized by artists as a painting support. The irregular yet durable fibers from flax also result in a less mechanical weave which can produce a more varied and interesting surface. Thankfully I don't have to press my own oil or weave my own canvas, but knowing that my art materials originate from these vivid blue clumps of flowers that grace my garden every year, is something I always marvel at.

     Although many people still think of oil paints as being toxic, for the most part it's the solvent used for thinning and cleaning up that's the bigger concern. Much of the bad reputation for the paint itself came from pigments that are no longer in common use such as lead white. For those of you who want to make use of the beautiful richness of traditional oils but have concerns about safety, Gamblin has an excellent page on their website that I am posting a link to below. I always encourage artists to do their own research but basically, unless you are sanding, spraying, grinding your own pigments or using a lot of solvents in a poorly ventilated space, there probably isn't as much to worry about as you might imagine.

     If you're interested in growing flax I'd suggest tossing out some seed in a barren location next to some gravel or pavement. Once it gets going, flax truly thrives on neglect and the occasional rain coming off of a roof in a sunny location seems to suit it just fine. More info on growing flax can be found at https://www.americanmeadows.com/content/wildflower-seeds/wildflower-species/all-about-flax

More info on studio safety  --- https://gamblincolors.com/studio-safety/studio-safety-create-without-compromise/

"Once you've started, you're halfway there." --- Horace, the Roman poet, in his work Epistles