Sizing raw linen
Grinding raw pigment
Testing knife marks
Scraping back
Stretching Belgian linen over pine frames and coating with warm rabbit-skin glue. The tooth must remain open to take heavy impasto without slickness.
Mulling earth gathered from Mpumalanga rock cuttings with cold-pressed flax oil on heavy ground glass until the paste achieves buttery resistance.
Applying quick impasto ridges on scrap card to observe how the Barberton daylight refracts across thick mineral edges as shadows shift.
Stripping false starts with a steel razor before drying sets. The ghost traces left on the ground often provide the foundation for what follows.
Hog bristle brushes soaking in citrus solvent alongside river pebbles, rusted iron plates, and hand-torn map fragments used to test surface friction.
Grounds gathered from Barberton rock
Commercial paint tubes lack the coarse granular grit of unrefined rock dust. Leaving slight particulate inconsistencies in the pigment paste yields a broken, light-catching surface that responds dynamically to shifting room light.
The Makhonjwa mountains offer some of the planet's oldest exposed sedimentary rock. Red jasper, banded ironstone, and soft shale collected along roadside runoffs are pulverized by hand and mixed directly with stand oil.
Curators, collectors, and travellers visiting Mpumalanga are welcome at the easel by advance notice.