Grackle Studio — and The Munsell Color Theory

Aparna Rupakula: 0:00

Grackle definitely brings the color precision to a great a greater level and gives you the control because you can say, hey, I don't want it that chromatic or I wanted that chromatic but it's certain values so you can choose exactly what you want to do and work with that.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:14

Welcome to the BoldBrush podcast where we believe that fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier, and I'm your host. Recently I sat down with Aparna who is the creator of the amazing brand crackle. grackles specializes in pre mixtures based on the Munsell color system, which we discuss on this episode. So if you're curious to know about having more control over your painting, and how to properly plan and know exactly how to troubleshoot when you make a huge mistake, then stick around and listen to our conversation. Hello, Aparna, how are you today?

Aparna Rupakula: 0:49

Thank good. Laura, thank you for having me on this podcast.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:49

Of course, this is awesome. I once I discovered grackle, i My mind was blown away because you guys do something that a lot of affiliates want without knowing that they want it. So that was really cryptic. But to help people understand what grackle is, do you mind giving us a little bit of background on what the company specializes in? And a little bit of history?

Aparna Rupakula: 1:16

Yeah. So grackle just grew from my own quest of finding color and trying to understand and get better at it. And I finally found all my painting problems color wise solved when I encountered them Ansel system. And so that became a big inspiration in my life. And I was very disappointed to see that there wasn't anything like that in the market, most of the pigments that you find out there are not by the choice of the artist, they are offered on sale just because that's what the paint manufacturers come up with. So that was something that made me think that it would be really helpful for artists, if we could access colors, the way we would use them for a painting. So in the sense that you could go buy all the pigments like white, black or Dumbo all of that stuff. But then when you bring them back into the studio, you'd have to mix all of that to match a flash stone or something like that. So it made sense to me that something like that a product that is closer to a painting needs should be in the market. And that's when this whole graphical studio emerged as a solution to that. And we came out of this whole pandemic isolation with the bracken studio, because we wanted to bring better color choices for artists into the market. And the inspiration for this was definitely you know, my own need and the lack of these colors. Being in the marketplace. It's been a very big learning experience starting this company, we've learned so much. And I personally have gained a lot just by mixing so much. You're thankful that we're here on this podcast talking with you.

Laura Arango Baier: 2:45

Yeah, yeah. And it's really awesome. Because like you said, your goal as a company is to understand color from an objective place. Because oftentimes, especially not to lose, we always hear like, oh, everyone, you know, it's like color is so subjective. Sure, maybe the way that people perceive color is subjective. But color itself is something that's objective, especially when it comes to painting. And especially since we spoke last time about when you analyze a bunch of the master copies that I'm working on how the majority of them have the same value strings and the same colors, which is mind blowing,

Aparna Rupakula: 3:19

it is very interesting, because it first of all shows the relevance of what we are mixing here. But what what the people did in the past, they probably worked with a limited range of colors, and then their paintings, if you see them, they're kind of very, very limited, you wouldn't be able to tell just because they are so amazing at what they do. But if you analyze stuff, it's I'm always amazed at the kind of Mannering they did with such a limited range and to produce those kinds of results that the AI is tricked into believing that there is a lot of color and Chroma that's going on there. So it is directly relevant to what happened in the past. And it is the system that we work with the Ansel system, it's relevant to what we do. It helps us understand the old masters so that we can learn from them. It helps us paint in our studios right this day and age. And it helps us make sense of all the stuff that's out there. Because right now it's like you become cheap fashion. You go out there you have all these pigments in the paint aisles. And it's very baffling. You go there and you don't really know what to pick. Oh, yeah. Especially for beginner, especially for a beginner because I think the the transition from a beginner to somebody who's comfortable with the pigment just happens because you become accustomed to a certain thing you buy and then you settle and that you call that your palette, right. But as you know, even to this day, I go to the paint aisle, and I'm completely overwhelmed by things I see. Yeah, right. So it's like, do we need all of that pigment? I don't think you need it on all honesty, because to mix the entire color space you just barely need about I'm guessing about 20 to 23 pigments and that's a lot. Yeah, so yeah, so it's essentially it really doesn't you don't really need all of those pigments, you can mix the color space with a much tinier range. And we are in an interesting place in history. Because way before the Industrial Revolution, we look at all masters, they're all before the Industrial Revolution, they didn't have all these pigments. And after the Industrial Revolution, you can actually see the transition happening. If you go to a museum, and then you go to the Impressionists section, you see color, a lot of color in a very direct way that you wouldn't have seen when you go, you know, to the earlier sections, it's not because passion is invented the use of colors just because it was available to them at the start and available, right. So it from then on, we just kept adding to our collection, we have more pigments, maybe some things were phased out, maybe something still remained, you know, but we have kept adding. And the reason we add is not because the painter thinks, hey, I need this particular pigment. It's because somebody in the industry out there wants to paint the car that color or wants to paint something else, that pigment just comes into the artwork. And now we're tackling and we're arguing or, you know, once a bit, it's not. And if we were to look at things objectively, coming back to the objective and subjective part of color, its color has an objective nature to it, just because each color is a certain wavelength of light. Yes. And that's undeniably the correlation that you have, you know, to physics and optics and things like that. So there is an objective element to it. It goes and falls on the rutina, it's, you know, it's processed by the head, the subjective side of color. To me, I think it's more about each color does have an emotional aspect to it, like it does, you know, bring out certain emotions and people, I think that is true, for sure. But color itself, while you know why we're teaching or why we are painting, we have to force ourselves to think objectively just so that we can succeed at the task we have at hand. And the choices that one makes using that color, or for use of a certain color is something that is the choice of the artist, why would you choose a certain green? Or why would you choose certain purple, that's the artists decision, when you are painting something, you cannot completely go off just the subjective road. And when you're describing it on when you're teaching it. More importantly, when you're teaching it, you cannot assume that a student would understand if I said, that's a little orangish. And purplish, you know, I see, for example, I see a rosebush in front of me, it has, you know, new fresh leaves, and that could be a reddish orangish. It looks a little red, purple. And that doesn't really convey the color, right?

Laura Arango Baier: 7:34

Because how much red how much purple? You know,

Aparna Rupakula: 7:38

how much red? How much purple? What's the value? Yeah, so the student rally really doesn't get it. And there's a power of suggestion, I might have somebody in the studio who takes a look at that and says, Hmm, I see a hint of blue green in it. And then I'm now beginning to think oh, there is a blue green in it. So when I'm painting it, I'm like, I Dad, so blue green into it, because someone said so. Right. So there's a suggestion. There's this whole subjective aspect of color, which is widely prevalent, and it's okay to me, honestly, if you are an accomplished painter in your talk of things like that, but it really does a big disservice to the teaching side of things. If I were to point out the exact hue and say, Hey, this is something in you know, I would say it's a red purple, but it's a certain value, maybe it's a value for you know, it's a certain Chroma that's easier for a student to find it.

Laura Arango Baier: 8:26

Right. I wanted to ask you, sorry, before we keep going, because I'm sure that most of our listeners, I'd say in passing anyone who has studied in Nathalia, say like Grand Central, they've heard of them Ansel system, but I think 90% of people have not heard of what it is. So I was hoping you could explain a bit what the Munsell color system is,

Aparna Rupakula: 8:47

the moment they say, Munsell color system, I get nervous because I think what is the color system because I don't see it as the color system. The way I see it is it's a collection. If you were to gather all the physically mixable colors in this world and put them in one place, you have them in some book of color. It's like the periodic table of color where you have in the periodic table things are arranged according to their atomic rate. According to the chemical properties, the Munsell color organization scheme, we have color that is organized by q by value, and by Chroma. So any color that you find in nature, you can associate a Hue value and Chroma to it and you could put that into Munsell book of color anything can be matched to the Munsell book of color. Now, the hue is the hue goes from red to yellow, red to yellow, and so on and so forth. It covers the entire gamut of what we speak and what we understand as color. And the difference between the Munsell color system and what people commonly know outside is the addition of value and Chroma. The ideas of value and Chroma are introduced in that fundamental system that makes it possible to say this does look like it's some kind of bluish green You can now say how dark or how light, the bluish green is. And you can say how chromatic your bluish green is, is it intensely colorful? Is it mildly colorful? Is it barely there? So the cell system stops you in your tracks and Associates every color with every color hue, a value and the Chroma. So that essentially is the crux of the Munsell says it objectifies things just so we can step to the next color. Because once you have one color established, you can say, hey, I want to make this a little darker. I want to make this a little chromatic, it gives you a reference position to move around the color space. So that's, yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 10:41

yeah, for instance, when I was at Grand Central, they actually had us take some Ansel chips, the neutrals, which, by the way, I saw you guys already saw them. It's just the whole neutral swing. And like, I could have just bought it. And I had no idea. Yeah, but they had his hand mix them. And that's what we use to learn gr Zai, which I think is really cool. what ways do you think the Ansel system and graphical paints can be used to help affiliates and students learn about color?

Aparna Rupakula: 11:09

Right? So I mean, I was at GDC. And I had to mix the grids I was trying to do. And it was, I think, a very challenging thing at that point, because you had to get it perfectly neutral. And I think this is how it probably education progresses at the Atelier, you start drawing you bark, you draw a bunch of bark, drawings, then you cast, you know, spend time cast drawings, then you move on to the cast painting. And then you have the desire or simply a monochromatic painting as the first step as an introductory step to painting. And you know, very clearly, if you have the neutral string, the neutral string is a mixture of Gray's it's a string of grades, or a set of grades that goes from zero value zero to a value nine, nine being the lightest, and, you know, I wouldn't say there's a value of zero, because that would be flagged with value one, which is very dark. See, this is a set of neutral hues, if you have them pre mixed, it really helps because you can, at that point, limit your range of value. So when you are in the light, you wouldn't go from, you know, you wouldn't have to interpolate between something mid range like five and then you jump to nine, and you're trying to interpolating if you are in the lives, you can very precisely control what you're painting, because you can say, hey, I'm going to stop at seven, seven is my lightest, and nine is my lightest light. So it's like having little pegs to climb that mountain, and you know exactly what range you'll be operating in. And there'll be some form that will be turning away from light, right, or, you know, that's something that's receding, and you can say, hey, I'm going to limit my values here between, let's say, seven to about six, sort of five, you know, so it helps you work with a small range. So essentially, when you're modeling form and the lit area, you'll be just working with two or three pain piles, instead of using, you know, the whole, instead of having a raw palette and mixing it on the fly. You know, people do that all the time. People do take excuse me, I think people have I've seen is people take whites, they take Board Number black, they mix stuff up on the palette, the only thing is you, you wouldn't be as precise as if you had all of those paints pre mixed, right? Right. So that's one reason why they would want you to do that. And I think visually also, it's because it gets used to it, and your eyes starts telling you when you go in the loop area, when you go into sexier like, Hey, that's a big chunk. So stop and think right? So that's one reason why people use those strings do teach painting and it's, that's the that's the neutral neutral string, the neutral string is is essentially in the Hmong cellblock of color is completely neutral. And what that means is it doesn't have a hue, right, so it doesn't, it doesn't it's not reddish oranges because I don't know I've painted things and I have seen some times I finished my back in the day before I used one. So I'd finish a painting and I'd see a glow to my painting or the whole thing looks very important number ish, you know, there's a certain that's that means that it has a hue and it has a chroma right? That's all it means. But back in the day, I was mystified I was like, Oh, it says black on the tube. But when I painted, it sounds blue. Yeah. So having those strings ready at hand, just the neutral scale on a very basic note is super helpful while painting casts or anything that's monochromatic it can be used to paint drapery and the digital string could be used to alter the Chroma and it's very frequently used to change the chroma on Yeah, highly aromatic pigment. So yeah, so that's, that's about the neutral monsell string, but I think there are many more strings that are useful for Atelier students specifically, like the flesh tones. Yes, the flesh shows are the reason why I completely shifted to the Ansel system because the flesh gels are extremely Apple and they are very low in Chroma. And that's what makes painting so hard, but the flesh tones and that's why, you know, sometimes I see flash and Flash is highly chromatic people paint very chromatic flash people look orangish, pinkish Oh my god. Yeah. So and that is that is that is just because we perceive things that way, you know, we say, hey, this person looks ready. I've had, you know, models come up and say I think I must be pretty, you know, pinkish and like, I don't think you are because you're all we are all low chroma no matter, you know, value from the world, you are low chroma. And that's why painting. Yeah, yeah, I mean, depends on where you are, and what kind of lifestyle you lead, right. And then you have certain, you know, chain, those kinds of organic changes, but nothing big. Nobody looks like orange, or nobody looks like really a pink anything. So the subtlety of these colors is why one cell system is there, it's because these colors can't really be identified. I will be surprised to know that this one cell system is used by the forestry department by the people who look at soil because surprisingly, yeah, we are the same hue as the colors that you find in nature, which isn't surprising in some ways, right? So you, for example, you'd have all these yellow reds that we imagine as you know, what we know as the flush downs. And that same yellow reds can be used to measure the color of soil and rocks. Oh, wow. And that's, that's to be expected. You know, we are not, we're not alien creatures, we've come you know, we are on this earth terra firma. So it has to be, it has to be somewhere that there's some unifying thing about nature and our colors and all of that stuff. But when you limit yourself, and you tell yourself that I'm going to paint, but not extensively, you know, this whole thing students is you're always curious, I was very curious about different palettes that people used, I use this one I'd like I thought that was the key to painting like someone right? And I think I must have gone crazy with studying people's palettes. But it didn't make me better at what I was doing. Oh, yeah. Because I'm still you know, I was still struggling. So what really liberated me is the fact that all of our flesh tones belong to one slice in the midsole color space, which is called the yellow red. And within that yellow reds, we belong to an even finer slice that is, if you're trying to paint a person as you see them, right, if that's the goal, then you are looking at an even smaller slice, because you cannot be very chromatic. So there's essentially about two or three sets of colors in every hue of yellow reds, that can be used to paint people. So you are you aren't all over the place, you can limit yourself to a small section of the flesh tones. And that is very, very helpful for students. And I know people who paint people all the time.

Laura Arango Baier: 17:55

Yeah, at least in a very painted people, the way they look type of way, because of course there are people who, you know, they added a little bit of spice to their paintings. Yeah, absolutely. In terms of like the old masters and imitating them. I feel like as we had seen with the master copies that you analyzed with your program, they exist in that tiny slice, which I did want to ask you has grackle sold the set of that flesh string in the past, you

Aparna Rupakula: 18:19

sell strings of flesh tones, the commonly used one is the 7.5, yellow red, and I think people have been using five yellow, red, also Chroma too. So these are all strings that are essentially it's a value string of fixed Chroma that people use. So you would fix the chroma at a certain number. And then you'd buy all the values in that Chroma. Yeah, these things are offered on our website, be going to be expanding our website and adding these specific sets that people can buy. And that's going to be the next step that you can see from us. Yeah, that's

Laura Arango Baier: 18:49

awesome. When I was at Grand Central if I mean, I had heard of Greco at that point, because my friend Lucas, he's used you guys for a while, and he's such a pro at monsell. And I always thought, Oh, that's awesome. But like, I don't really get it. But now that I understand it, in hindsight, it would have been so easy to just find that flustering habit on my palate and just get straight to work. Because when I was there, a lot of people and I don't want to say this is the fault of the school, since there really isn't an easy way to explain color like this. And I feel like that's what graphic was so important in this mission to help people understand objective color in that sense of understanding color and color mixture. These programs tend to be lacking in that I'm not gonna say that they're bad. I just say they're lacking using grackle would be such a life changer for a lot of students.

Aparna Rupakula: 19:32

I would say everyone is like, I haven't seen anyone explained color effectively. There has been how should I say a tang of something very scientific. When I say the Ansel system, people think hey, that's scientific. That's logical. And somehow our isn't logical. There is a philosophical point there, which is that we assume that our isn't logical. We assume that genius is spontaneous, you know, and I think that's a fallacy what I've seen usually think is if Leonardo da Vinci was alive at this moment, and he knew about the Ansel system, he wouldn't stop to learn, he would go pick it up and figure something out. Because art is a product of a whole lot of contemplation, a whole lot of design, because you have to sit down, make a composition, that composition might look great in your head, but when you put it on the canvas might look not that impressive. So you're going to be working on your compositional skills. Hopefully, we have all the drawing figured out until we get there. Sometimes you're painting and you're fixing some transfer issues that you have while you're painting to make a painting is an intellectual effort. And that intellectual effort is a combination of a whole lot of things that happen, the artists philosophy, the thought that goes behind the planning that goes behind, because if you have a plan, you're better prepared to deal with the job and unplanned there is nothing wrong with planning. And here is where people assume that if you plan then you lose that something some magical mysticism, yeah. Which is fine. But I think that's a fallacy because you cannot separate out the thinking from art. It's like saying, I will not think I'm just going to react. That's one spool of meaning to I agree, but you have to acknowledge the fact that product of human genius, as you see, you know, all those old master paintings is not just pure inspiration, nobody came up one day and finished it right. And it is a result of a whole lot of planning. It's a lot of preparation that goes in,

Laura Arango Baier: 21:22

and observation and training. And training. Yeah. And observing reality, it brings us back to that objective color. Yeah,

Aparna Rupakula: 21:29

I think the reason why people do not teach will sell on a very broad scale is because there's this whole conversation that has to happen before that, which is there is nothing wrong with being scientific about what you do. We are being scientific. When we study anatomy, why not?

Laura Arango Baier: 21:45

Totally. It's really funny how we go about everything that comes to drawing to anatomy to the human to even Trees and leaves and everything in such a scientific logical way. But then when it comes to color flick, that logic just goes poof.

Aparna Rupakula: 21:59

Yeah, personally, you know, I felt like I fell off the deep end, when I began painting, I drawn for a longer period, because I was afraid of oil paintings. And I think that I've seen many people like me, I remember asking the instructors, how do I lay my palette out? Right, any which way you're comfortable was the answer. So I'm not comfortable with or without the palette if it wasn't helpful. And I'm curious about what everyone is using, because I'm dissatisfied with my work. So I'm like, I go up and say, Hey, what are you using what you're using, and I, and I'm like, I'm going to squeeze out all of them. So I have about 10 to 15 views. And I have the model in front of me. And he was, but you know, I wouldn't be putting the magenta and my heels, I still be working the same yellow red family in the end. But except my mixtures were not related in any way to each other. So there'd be a couple of random piles in my palette, which in my mind corresponded to what the model was. And then I began painting. Now when I paint in this manner, what happens is that if I'm dissatisfied, I don't know how to correct anything. Right? It's like completely going without a map into the sea, you know, on a raft. Yeah. So you're not going to find anything and no people can fix it hurt you. And I've taken so many workshops, people come around the over my shoulder, and they can fix my feeding looks great. Obviously, the instructor knows what they're doing. I don't I've taken so many workshops that I used to go in and go out, go in and out. Maybe I probably did learn something but it wasn't significant because I couldn't use it to grow the way I would have grown. And all of this kind of stuff stopped when I took great and parishes workshop. So graden was the first person that actually taught me something that was of consequence, and permanently changed how I thought about color, things became more doable, because I could go to something and say, I think I can paint this. I know my limitations. And I know all the stuff that can be done within my limits and something like fleshtones I think it was just unbelievable the kind of results that using an Ansel string dust your work is unbelievable. As a great and parish has been, what do you say the most influential figures in my own painting life, and he still continues to be and I would highly, highly recommend people study color mixing with them. Just because there is no mystery to how we mix colors a graduate studio, I can tell people exactly how it's done. It does help learning some mixing principles before not just you begin to mix your own colors. It just helps to know those mixing principles to paint and mix things on your palette because you keep in mind certain things that will prevent mistakes from happening while you're painting. That's

Laura Arango Baier: 24:37

yeah, you have that guide that map like you said, and you're not just you're no longer on a little raft in the sea. Now maybe you're like on an actual yacht. You know,

Aparna Rupakula: 24:45

you are on a raft. Yeah, I know. I think you are on a good ship which has a good captain and knows where it's going. It just helps you plan your paintings. It helps you come back into your painting after one year. It stops mistakes. are avoidable, the more planning that goes into a painting, it's just like the more drawing that you do before you fix your drawing mistakes before you transfer it more planning that you put in your color, the better the results are.

Laura Arango Baier: 25:11

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it's like you said, it's the same thing. It's a logical thing, you fix your drag to drag it to drag until it's perfect. So why not your color? And then you just said, Oh, my God, I didn't think about that, where you already have your flustering. And so you leave a painting for a year, you can come back and be like, Oh, I know what I was doing. Like, this is my range here. This is my range here. This is what it needs. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Aparna Rupakula: 25:33

I work long form paintings, I do all the premium stuff. But I'm not satisfied with our premium. My other premium stuff, I like to go back and work on a painting or a month, because it has that observation that goes into it. So for someone like me, who works longer periods, it makes sense to be able to jump into paintings and not worry about what the heck was I doing six months ago, I don't remember. So it takes you right there. And but fleshtones, there's an added advantage is because you can measure a person to a certain hue, you know, a little bit reddish, and a little bit, you know, something, but you if you have two strings, this is the beauty of fleshtones is if you have two strings in close hues, you can actually had all the intermediate notes. So you can go from 2.5, yellow, red to 7.5, yellow, red. And when you mix those two, you end up with all those intermediate nodes, which gives you all those subtle shifts on the flash that I don't think you could do it without them. And so

Laura Arango Baier: 26:29

yeah, and on the fly it would be it'll probably be like trial and error, trial and error until it just looks fine.

Aparna Rupakula: 26:34

It is so much of trial and error. trial. And error is something that happens a lot with artists is like you're dabbing your dab doesn't look right. That doesn't look right, Deb. Okay. Okay, let's move on. And now once you moving on, you're like, Okay, gotta go back and fix that again. That yeah, what happens is you're mixing on the canvas at that point. Yeah. So you are mixing on your palette and then mixing on the canvas. Yeah. So there was this whole amount of element of randomness and chaos that's being introduced here and there, that it just makes hard. You know, it makes it hard for to conclude the whole thing. Yeah, that's

Laura Arango Baier: 27:09

what I've been going through with with my Ella prevas portraits because I use only four pigments for them. Right. All of them are just four pigments. And that means I have to you know, like I said, mix my flesh. Yeah. New every time and like you said also is a more yellow isn't more red. What range? And is it less chromatic more chromatic? And sometimes it's, it just doesn't? Like just know that.

Aparna Rupakula: 27:34

Yeah, I believe in dismissive dabs. I think that's what grackle studio stands for. I was like you make a dab be necessary. That was a decision that you miss. And best assertion could be wrong, it could definitely be wrong, but you can correct it appropriately. At least build a scaffolding. So I think we're trying to limit the number of tabs.

Laura Arango Baier: 27:54

Yes, I did want to ask you because I have seen on the Instagram, the grackle. Instagram, I love seeing the videos of the paint spray mix. And I was wondering what the process is for that? How do you mix these tubes?

Aparna Rupakula: 28:07

Yes, the process is pretty simple. We just mix it the same way as any artists would mix it in the studio, we get our pigments from the market from some of them from the wholesale people and some of them source from individual paint makers. And we mix all of those paints, and we get the, you know, the final color.

Laura Arango Baier: 28:25

Yeah. And then I think I read also that someone if someone has an image that they want to paint, say, for example, like how I sent you my master copies, I think you'd mentioned that use like a computer program to help you determine those men sell colors. Yes, because

Aparna Rupakula: 28:38

very clearly, if you take an RGB from that image, you can transfer that to the monsell. And the reason why we transfer that to the monsell instead of leaving it at the RGB is just because we can now mix it, we have the check ready, we can mix it, put it on the chip and say, Hey, this is the color. So yes, we do. We do a lot of color image analysis. And artists are always curious about their own paintings, paintings that they like. So if you want to paint yourself like, like a blue guru or something, you can go find the blue guru colors and then paint yourself that way. So doing things like that. It's like what if I changed a few things here and there. So that's, that's what we do. All you have to do is shoot us an email at info at grackle dot studio and tell us you want to dimensionalized and then we just take it from there.

Laura Arango Baier: 29:26

That's awesome. Oh, yeah. This podcast is brought to you by FASO. If you're listening to this, it's safe to say that you're probably an artist and you've probably struggled like most of us have to sell your work online using some random website building platform that isn't even made for artists. If this sounds like you, then check out faso.com forward slash podcast. FASO is an art marketing platform specifically designed for artists to help showcase your work. And not only that, it'll also help you sell your work things too. There are really easy built in E commerce and marketing channels that help promote your work to over 48,000 Then collectors. On top of that, you'll also get access to marketing tips and help with your social media from top people in the industry. So if this sounds like a really great thing, and you want to take your artwork to the next level and sell as much as you can, then go check out faso.com forward slash podcast BoldBrush, but also like to give a huge thank you and shout out to Chelsea classical studio for their continued support in this podcast. If you're interested in archival painting supplies handmade with a lot of patients, go check out their Instagram at CCS fine art materials. That is such a great service because I don't want to compare it to painting by the numbers. But it is a little bit like that. Because it's you have to put this here, you have to put this here. And it's going to be exactly what you should expect, you know, because sometimes when we start paintings, we have that, like you set an expectation in our head about what it might be. But then the moment we put it down without this roadmap, it could be totally wrong.

Aparna Rupakula: 30:57

There was always this comparison between paint by numbers and the Ansel system. And I wish it was simple. Yeah. But what it does, what the Ansel system does is just takes us this much closer to your painting goals. And the final manipulation is always in the artists. Hence, what I'm saying is this simplistic way of dabbing that color will not make it look like a guru, it will get you the hues of the Boogaloo. But if you were to paint like guru, you should know how to draw like him too. That's I'm just being honest about that. So I think you can have those flesh tones and all that good stuff, just analyzing all these old paintings, as I believe that the old masters had a lot of paint mixing that was done for them in their studios, because the amount of manipulation that goes into painting, something that's subtle is only possible if you have premix mixtures. So we are kind of old fashioned in that way. Because it's all pre mixed mixtures, we just want to make sure that artists don't have to struggle with getting all the raw pigments and mixing it themselves. We are actually the intermediaries and we care deeply about the colors that be used, and we make those premix

Laura Arango Baier: 32:03

mixtures for you. And I think that's awesome, because I feel like a lot of people would be worried that it's like cheating. To you. Yes, yeah. But I feel like you can still gain an understanding of color, like you said, without going through all this mess and trouble of trying to figure it out on your own. When you have these value strings, these color strings, these flesh strings, the more you use them, and the more you apply them. Yeah, the more you understand what the heck you're doing.

Aparna Rupakula: 32:28

No, I think that's because that's, I would say it's cheating, if using anatomy to draw human form is cheating. Oh, that's a good news. Because if, if I just want to draw a person, why do I care where the muscle insertion is? Right? I would say it's honestly cheating. If it took an ordinary person and turn them into the great masters, you know, that doesn't happen. All it does is it takes an art student makes them better at their skill of identifying color. And it makes them better at color mixing. And it makes them a more refined artist who can exercise full control over the decisions they make. Because you know, you want to paint someone that looks real flesh wise, with low chroma, you can completely switch it and paint somebody purple. But that is a decision you can make and keep control over the process. So you can manipulate and have control over things that you couldn't have had without themselves. So I think there is this paint by number idea. But all it does is it makes you a final painter. All it does is it gives you complete control, rather than you know, it worked that one day and the next day, you can't paint it again. So

Laura Arango Baier: 33:40

yeah, it takes the luck and chance part out of it and makes it like no, this is this. It's like ballet.

Aparna Rupakula: 33:47

If training for ballet was cheating. If if, if all those steps were just spontaneously done on the stage, it would look like my kids dance. Right? So my kids show me a few dance moves. And I can ask them to repeat it until they can't. Yeah. Because that's not rehearsed. And it's not, it's not. It's like if everything was all about spontaneity, then you wouldn't have 98% of the good art that you enjoy now.

Laura Arango Baier: 34:14

And like you said, I feel like there would be like two camps of people on this the one camp of people who's like, but what about, like the happy accidents that you get sometimes, but if you know if I was thinking, man, so I'd be like, well, you can make those accidents look like accidents, but make them look good. Instead of dabbing five times and then maybe it looks okay, you know, decide, oh, you know, there's like a little touch of like, broken color here. And you can use the system like you said, to find the exact perfect broken color that you might want to have in one spot. Yeah,

Aparna Rupakula: 34:44

I think I'm amazed if somebody thinks that happy accident is something that's so far away from what they were planning to do that we have a problem. Yeah, because it has to. It has to I mean the broken color. You can explain broken color. You can explain impressionism you can explain abstract at art, because abstract art relies heavily on color, right? Yes. So if I was an abstract painter, then I'd go crazy because I have about 1400 options of colors to choose from. And each of them resonates in a certain way. And and now I'm thinking of color harmonies, I'm thinking of so many other things that can be done. So, accidents in art should be we kind of overdo that part where we say, this was an accident and accident of genius, too. That's even more interesting when I hear that. Because if only people knew how hard Vermeer might have worked on his painting, if only people knew how hard people work on their paintings, and they seem to look less like accidents, and more like conscious work, I would want have happy accidents, but happy accidents in a productive manner. Yeah. Which really lead to better ideas. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 35:49

it's like looking at Rembrandt. And he has tons at least in his later pieces, yes, tons of broken color and layering. And it's intentional. It is after years and years and years of knowing what the heck he's doing. Yes, yes. And even we call them accidents, because we don't understand them. Yeah. You know, it's nicer to say it that way. Yes. Because it's like, oh, he totally didn't mean to do it. And it turned out amazing. No, yeah, he knew what he was doing.

Aparna Rupakula: 36:16

I think people are like little kids, in some ways, because we like magical stories. Ya know, we like to have good, we always like there's an element of unpredictability and element of happy, you know, coincidences and stuff. And the reality is, it's more than that art. I mean, if if art was that simple as a series of happy accidents, I don't think we need to go to school to study. Yeah. Why do we need to study I'd create a lot of happy accidents and learn how to do that, in my accidents would just train wrecks.

Laura Arango Baier: 36:49

I think it's 5.2.

Aparna Rupakula: 36:51

I think it's, yeah, so that's, that's the summary is that you can say, hey, I don't like all of this position, because I like to pay directly from what I buy from the store, right? That's a choice one makes, but it's a completely needless one. Because it's like scaling a mountain with all these pegs rolled in versus killing the mountain without anything, it just avoids a ton of dabbing on the canvas, it, you know, kind of brings the whole amount of thought and control to your own planning process. You can say, hey, I'm gonna sit down pain for three hours. And you know, you have a palette laid out, ready to work, work for three hours, wipe it off, come back to it the next day go exactly from where you left off. And it just removes a whole amount of all those roadblocks to good creativity. So

Laura Arango Baier: 37:39

Oh, yeah, yeah. And like you said, once you get a hang of, of understanding it, you can manipulate it, it takes out the I don't want to say it takes out the mystery, because even then, when you're painting, you know, you're still painting the mystery of life. But it's less mysterious, in the sense that you know what you're doing. Yeah,

Aparna Rupakula: 37:56

it's less mysterious for sure. So this is how I, you know, I think that was this old thing. And I'll tell you my experience with fleshtones. I remember using fleshtones on my palette, and I looked at them and like, oh, they do look like people, right, the colors do look like I'm looking at a person. And I remember putting them on my palette, putting my neutral string putting my colors down, it took me about a year to figure out how to paint. And that's because it's not as simple as that. It's not as simple as saying, Hey, I'm going to dab this light here on the forehead does this and you know, those the nose bridge, and then you go under the nose shadow, you know, the neck or whatever, then you go we finish off all the values? And does that look like a person? No, because you're going to do so many more in finite manipulations to that painting. And all those and finite manipulations is you just manipulating in a very precise manner. It's like going to surgery with your surgical tools instead of you know, a butter knife and all the knife. So it's better than that.

Laura Arango Baier: 38:54

It is infinitely more complicated. When you're painting the face like you can have, you have all the tools in front of you, you can have the model in the perfect pose, you can have the perfectly sharp pencil or that perfectly mixed palette. But there's still a lot to do on top of that, you know,

Aparna Rupakula: 39:11

that's why that's why it's fun. The amount of time you gain from using a premixed palette just so that you can explore faces are just not static. Like we have emotions on our faces, we have all these different things that happen. And so you can go forth and explore all of those things with confidence that if something happens, you can still do but it gives you that range of freedom to explore things with the face because it's so how should I put it if people are nervous, because I paint from life. Some people pay for photos. So I paint from life and it's it used to be nerve wracking to go punch the face. Well, the model isn't there. Yeah, because you're worried you're gonna mess up in a way that it looks like you know, your cousin in my case. So if you don't want to do that, right, so you're worried about touching the face. Now what happens is because I have premier strengths I've painted without the model and without a photographic reference either. And so because I'm thinking anatomy wise, I'm thinking, you know, all the familiar facial typography that we know, exists, yes. And you use your knowledge to paint while the model isn't there, then you go forth, see the model, make your adjustments, and the end result is absolutely amazing. Yeah. So I didn't get it. Because what stops you from, you know, knowing that there's this little cheek line or, you know, there's gonna be this nostril, you know, all of this. You can, you can figure it out at home. And there's no need to fear anything. Because whatever it is, it's a mistake of Hue value, and Chroma. And you can fix it on your palette when you get back there. Because it's not something far away from what you have on your palette anyways,

Laura Arango Baier: 40:50

yeah, that's true. And I have when when I was studying at both schools, because I went to Grand Central and I went to Angel Academy, they always said do not paint without the model.

Aparna Rupakula: 41:01

I don't see why not. I mean, we all tempted to Yeah, because I look at it face on like, Damn, that needs fixing. Yes. So I'm tempted to and I think, you know, honestly, and how much of model time can you afford on your own as an artist? Like,

Laura Arango Baier: 41:16

you know, it's yeah, it's really challenging, especially after leaving the schools, you don't have access? You have a budget? Yeah. Or access? Yeah, exactly. Because you're maybe in the middle of nowhere, or, I mean, you have yourself as a model, if you want to do self portrait, but you can get tired of painting yourself. And you also you're very limited to poses unless you have like four mirrors that you can just mess around with. Yeah, but it's yeah, it's amazing. And also, I actually wanted to bring that up too. And, you know, painting about the model. And also, if you know what you're doing, you know, anatomy, you know, sufficient things about how to paint the human form, or the portrait school is going to stop you from painting a portrait from imagination. You know, I don't see

Aparna Rupakula: 41:53

why not. I mean, you might eventually have to, because this, the only thing that I this is my all of this is my personal experience with painting without the model, the only thing that comes between calling data finished work for me would be to go back because there's so many other elements of the light effects that I cannot imagine in my head. That I do go back and ask the model for one last thing, so I can finish it up completely. So that's that's been the thing, but you make can make great strides without the model. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 42:23

yeah. That's mind blowing. Yeah. Because it always schools they don't, I feel like I've whenever I would be at the schools, and again, it's I'm not saying that they're bad. I'm just saying, you know, there are things that are lacking. And with technology. With Ansel, everything we've been moving forward we're making, we're making great strides on the backs of with the old masters taught us. And now we're just removing some of the mystery. I felt very much held back when it came to color. I felt like my instructors would always like, pull me back, pull me back. And I feel like that was that that creates a sort of fear in the artist. Yeah. And like we said, you know, with with myself it, yeah, it dissolves that fear. Because you know what you're doing, you're not, you're not held back anymore,

Aparna Rupakula: 43:01

you're not being held back anymore, you're free to make your choices, you choose your subjects according to what is like you have a shell on the back of your room that you can flip it and you see all these use inside that shell, right. And you're always mystified as to how people paint it. But it's not, it's not a mystery. So it's actually it's actually every single recent thing that you see there can be matched to a color. And this is we are putting opaque color on our canvases to do it. The reason why I think this happens where people are kind of, you know, lost a little bit lost while teaching is because one instructor doesn't speak the same language as the other instructor, let alone use the same pigment. Right. And that's why people go back to limited palettes because they say, Hey, I please need some structure. I need to at least work with this. And now let me figure it out with the limited palette. But if you were to talk to the student in a way that remains like it's a cohesive idea throughout the whole instruction model, then you would have far fewer students who go they're frustrated because I was in the same boat. I, I've, I've gone. You know, as I said, I looked at everybody's palettes trying to figure out what the heck is happening here. You know, I can't understand anything. I'm so bad at this. And I, you know, on on the whole I wasn't that bad, but I'm not happy or satisfied. You know? Yes. Yes. So that's, that's something that discontent that comes from not being able to achieve your own goals is a very profound one. So I yeah, that's that's one thing. I mean, I think I finally the educational system fixes that.

Laura Arango Baier: 44:34

Oh, yeah, I think that would be the next step. Like if I was going to open an affiliate, or if I already had one, I would immediately start implementing themselves because in a way I did somewhat learn myself when I was an angel, because they did give us a palette and it was based on this based on the Zorn palette, it was very limited. We did include a few extra pigments just to save time, like we had read on verb renumber and Romberg just to save you time from mixing you know the Black with a little bit of yellow or the black with the red or black. Like it just saves time in that sense, but it was always very logical. It was like, What are you trying to do? Are you trying to lighten and also increase Chroma, then you would use like Cad Red, for instance, if you wanted to make it lighter and redder, are you trying to darken but also maintain the chroma studios like red number to get more of like that darker? Like they made it make sense in that way. And there was no mystery to it. And I appreciate that. But I feel like the next step past that would definitely be months. So yeah,

Aparna Rupakula: 45:32

yeah, they have to there has to be. I mean, this is this would be the vision is vision of grackles to do would be to elevate that conversation between artists and between artists and students to talk about color instead of pigment. And to teach color mixing in a logical way. So that every student can mix and succeed, you know, yes, and then take it a notch further. And then you say, these are the colors that can be identified, and they can be mixed. And they can be, you can choose what you want to paint, you know, because I've seen situations where people choose something that's visually appealing by all that shiny, you know, brass stuff, it's not, it's not, it's not gonna really reproduce itself, the effect on painting, then unable to do that in the painting, like bring that effect, but it appeals to them in the painting. And that's because they're going off the visual aspect of it. And so if you are going off the visual aspect of it, it really helps us them Ansel to say, Hey, this is the color this is the hue. Yeah, now, you know, you'll get much closer. So I think that the discussion needs to be elevated. And I be sincerely believe that it is going to go up from here. Because we Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, we are in a strange situation. At the moment. I feel very bad for artists because the people before as Rembrandt included, didn't have to deal with the pain dials at Jerry's or anything, right? So there are pigments sourcing was limited. They had earth based colors, they had a few high chroma notes. And I'm sure you've done your master copies. So you know that even that high chroma note isn't that chromatic.

Laura Arango Baier: 47:05

It's yeah, it's actually really dark. Yeah, it's

Aparna Rupakula: 47:07

pretty dark. It's low tech. And

Laura Arango Baier: 47:09

it's less chromatic than you'd like. It's more chromatic in reference to the colors around it. So it like you said earlier, you said that it's like an illusion of Chroma. But it's really not that bright.

Aparna Rupakula: 47:20

Right? It's not that bright. And it's, yeah, so I think, you know, that kind of limited nature that people in the past had, we do not. And it's our disadvantage, and we can fix it by organizing what we have, because I think as time progresses, we're going to have more colors coming our way. And that doesn't necessarily make us more able to do things that we didn't do before. It's not like superpowers, we get lots of them, it's not going to work that way. We'll have to make sense, first of what we have. Yes. And then that's the whole Munsell color system is just to make sense of what we have. And all the notions that people have, like, this is objective, this is paint by number, and all of that is a probably would have, you know, you know, stood for longer if we were back in the 1750s painting, but now with the kind of pigments out there, and you know, the corresponding colors, we are just swimming in color right now. And if we don't make sense of it, it's like, yeah, if we don't make sense of it now, we'll just keep going in circles.

Laura Arango Baier: 48:26

So I know a lot of people. Yeah, they have that misconception of I'm just going to use the screen out of the tube. Yeah, it's probably not the best idea. Example they can.

Aparna Rupakula: 48:39

Yeah, I think it grackle definitely brings the color precision to create a greater level and gives you the control because you can say, hey, I don't want it that chromatic or I wanted that chromatic but it's certain values, so you can choose exactly what you want to do. And yeah, worked with that. And I mean, just, if I just think about all the options that one can have, when it comes to landscape painting, you know, because everything that's used to them Ansel Begriff color actually responds to real soil and real trees and all that good stuff. There's a whole lot to be gained from this. And when you're painting draperies, when you play painting florals, and you know, floral, I have a few friends who love to paint florals and the subtlety that goes into it. If you didn't have you didn't have them Ansel system, you would probably it would be harder. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 49:30

I have that experience. painting flowers are tricky. It's a whole other it's almost like if you were a scientist, like what kind of scientists are you? Right? So if you paint portraits, you're you know, portrait painter and you specialize in that but then when you try to paint flowers, oh my god. It's like being a botanist. You have to like the specific Chroma that they have and like within their petals, and then oh, subtlety. It's insane.

Aparna Rupakula: 49:55

It's it's it's very challenging, and I think it's like God With two things there, one is the color and then the form, the way the petals turn the rate of curvature, the rate of how light falls off, and the translucence of the petal. Right? And so you're dealing with so much and I think once once finishes that you have newfound respect for the old Dutchman.

Laura Arango Baier: 50:18

Oh my god, all floral Dutch paintings. They were insane.

Aparna Rupakula: 50:22

They were ended up so fleeting to like they didn't have images to take. Right.

Laura Arango Baier: 50:28

So how to just go for it right away? Yeah. It's, I mean, if I, like I mentioned earlier, I was gonna have enough to later if I was a teacher, I'm not too late. I would definitely tell my students by grackle just by your color, your flesh string and bring it to class. I'll teach you how to use it basically,

Aparna Rupakula: 50:48

simplify life, simplify life, I think. I think this is that's one of our missions of grackles studio has been to, you know, there's an educational component to it, undoubtedly, like it. This is not, we're just not a paint manufacturer. We are people who create color for artists specifically, and which relates to their process of painting, you know, our colors correspond to the exact things that the need to paint as an educational component to it, and be very happy. I mean, if you have an atelier,

Laura Arango Baier: 51:20

oh, I would definitely call you up and be like, Aparna I need 10 boxes?

Aparna Rupakula: 51:25

Yeah, no, I think it's, it's a it's all of these colors that we have we mix them ourselves. Yeah. So the process is very small batch handmade. So that's, like everything goes through human hands. It's not from

Laura Arango Baier: 51:39

Yeah, which is beautiful, too. I mean, it has that human component.

Aparna Rupakula: 51:43

Yes, it has a human component. And we get to see exactly the texture, the kind of because the goal is to get a paintable on the palate, and it doesn't dry out the next day, you know, so I, I personally do not prefer paints that are stiff. And then the next day you come out this is big, you know, layer paint. Yeah. Right. I mean, I think that I feel like paints need to be fresh, they should be buttery, they should be out there or the pain go, you know, it's up. So it brings up this whole Old Master color mixing customization to the modern artist. Right. So that's what grackle Studio does. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 52:19

yeah. And then the other thing that I find really awesome about your tubes themselves is that I think you had shown me or I've seen them on Yes, see Instagram, they're they're different. The

Aparna Rupakula: 52:29

different looking than the metal tubes, because the metal tubes, what happens with the metal tubes, I'll tell you the story, you use them use crease your pain out. And then some of that pain comes on to the grooves of that tube and the cap one go on because the crew is no different. Right? So I've had things where you put try to put the cap back and it doesn't go on. So I'm like, forget the camp. It's a good night open to you. Because that there are people who are very organized and they do a good job of keeping it all clean and stuff. But it can get cumbersome when you're in a hurry. So the caps like the flooding all over the place. And paint sometimes dries out badly. Like I've had instances where you mix a pile you haven't used if you come back and solid Gordon was white with a rock. It's like a rock. Right? So you can't squeeze it. And I'm not I'm not particularly strong. You know? So I like something that's nice and easy. When you squeeze it in, it comes out i Oh, yeah. Yeah, pliable. And it this idea of these tubes wasn't mine, it was great idea. Great and experimented using those tubes and these tubes. They're made of plastic. And so inherently The idea is plastic is bad for the environment, which is true. But the good thing about these tubes is that they can be reused in finite way. So they don't have to go by Yeah, you don't have to throw them back. You just have to fill your fleshtones back into the same tube. Oh,

Laura Arango Baier: 53:52

that's cool. So do you think Greco would offer a service where you send them back? And then you? Oh, yeah, definitely. I

Aparna Rupakula: 53:59

mean, that saves us also having to buy new tube, right. It's a complete wastage. So I think before we can fill up the same to for you. Yeah, that's and the paint stay fresh much longer. And that's the biggest advantage if you know, if you've squeezed them out. I've done like three months on six months on my paint stays the same way it did the day we mixed it. That's beautiful. So that's it makes me happy. Let's just say fresh paint makes me happy.

Laura Arango Baier: 54:26

Yeah, yeah, it's that, like you said, it's that buttery smoothness. So easily with your brush and it just goes on? Oh, yeah. Beautiful thing.

Aparna Rupakula: 54:36

I know. It's if you have that feeling of you know your brush is fighting against the paint by like oak in it.

Laura Arango Baier: 54:43

Yeah, it's sticky and tacky or I think

Aparna Rupakula: 54:45

tacky and it's hard and rough. And you've got like your painting and you have all these little little blobs of paint on it on the cast. Yeah. And then

Laura Arango Baier: 54:52

also just like I prefer to not use too much medium because archivally it doesn't help your painting in the long term. So using a pen that already has the amount of meeting exactly needs is the cherry on top, which, yes, I yeah, I'm excited to try out the paints that you're going to send me.

Aparna Rupakula: 55:10

Yeah, absolutely. I think the linseed oil does lead yellow over time. Lucy does. Yeah. And I'm like waiting for people to say, hey, Aparna, don't use linseed use walnut oil instead. Because walnut doesn't do that.

Laura Arango Baier: 55:23

Yeah, though, I did speak to a paint manufacturer recently. And he did tell me that the issue with walnut oil is that it isn't mass produced. So it's much more expensive than the amount that is produced, I'd say like 90% of it is actually for cooking. It isn't necessarily for paint. So it has to go through a much more complicated process for paint. And I think the other thing he mentioned was that it's more perishable. Oh, what do you mean by it's more perishable, it still retains some of the qualities of it being from a nut and the nut goes rancid. So it does have that risk. So in the long term, refined linseed oil is a little bit safer as a choice. So whenever I see people like using, like cooking oils or their for their medium, I'm like, hurts. That hurts me. But when they're persuading, get one loyal Hmm. I mean, that's the one thing that he had mentioned, um, obviously, I mean, things can change with time, and maybe there could be a better way to produce one oil and in a way that makes it less perishable and better for the paint. But yeah, yeah, no,

Aparna Rupakula: 56:30

I don't want to paint the smell my painting. My painting. I don't want it to smell rancid.

Laura Arango Baier: 56:34

Yeah, yeah. But like, if it's in the tube, and like, it's just it, you know, over time, it's almost like, you know, you keep a tube of whatever in your fridge, and then you keep it there for months or months. Eventually, it's, it's gonna go bad if it's food. So I think that's just, yeah,

Aparna Rupakula: 56:48

yeah, just I mean, I think we just stick to the long term, whatever was being has been done in the past the linseed oil. Yeah, there's this, there is a whole amount of complexity, chemistry wise, that goes into pigments and mediums and all these things that be I mean, there's the complexity is enormous. And I could kind of understand why why the paint manufacturers would be thinking more about that, than colors, because they have to get all that that figured out, you know, how to how do certain pigments age, you know, how to the holes, the medium age, and all of that. And so that's a different game. I have dabbled in that. And it's like it's a, it's a very complex world. Because now if you think about the complexities once you mix two pigments, essentially what you're doing is you're mixing two chemicals, right? Yeah. And so how does that complex interaction play out over time? So that that's challenging? Yeah, it is very challenging. And so I think for artists, more importantly, you know, people talk a lot about pigments and all that stuff. It's great, because there's been research being done on that topic, by the paint manufacturers themselves, and they have all these data sheets and all of those things, you know, pretty much out there, it really would help the artists themselves to focus on color. Yeah, more than you know, play around with the pigments because yeah, that's what we see when you're talking with pigment. It's essentially that chemical structure, you know, that chemistry and all that. But color is essentially what as an artist you are dabbling with you'll be seeing it viewing and all of that.

Laura Arango Baier: 58:23

And that's the other good thing about Krakow because I saw that you guys you don't see what brands use but I'm gonna guess you guys use the best brands possible but yes, you know have had really good I guess that have really I'm gonna say clean but I guess like they're very pure in a way where they're not mixed with God knows what because when I spoke to this, this paint manufacturer he did mention how there are other brands that are cheaper. Sure, they're, you know, they're more affordable for artists, but they aren't better and sometimes they mix God knows what into it and it makes it less archival. So I assume Rachael for sure is is the highest quality paints to mix these Yeah monsell colors

Aparna Rupakula: 59:03

Yeah, absolutely. I think the pigments that we use I mean there's no secret about it we use about a Williamsburg or sorry Michael Harding. But most of our you know the volume of paints require White Black Board Number You know, these are like regular things that we use and those we do not buy from any brand we wholesale purchase those because it makes sense for larger volumes production but all of these guys they they themselves sell to the other paint manufacturers in New York. So essentially, our quality is comparable to Williamsburg and the other guys so that's that's the goal. That's awesome. Yeah, we use high quality stuff. I mean, there's no way we're going to add anything else to it because yeah, that's all that matters. These are going to be used to create fine paintings we don't want to put things in

Laura Arango Baier: 59:52

I'm paintings that are going to live a very long time very long. But we all worry about as painters, you know the longevity We have our pieces.

Aparna Rupakula: 1:00:01

Yeah, we are. And I think we might be doing this as like we might make some of our fleshtones sets CAD free. Yeah. So good. Next. Yeah. Yeah, that's gonna be the next thing for us is we're going to be offering CAD free versions of things. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:00:16

And also maybe lead free if you can't it just as a request because

Aparna Rupakula: 1:00:21

yeah, by default we don't mix with lead us. But there are artists who prefer lead. Yeah. And the painting is just for them. It's a different thing. So we make it like for them.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:00:30

Yeah. Cool. Okay. So if someone does want it with lead, they could just directly, absolutely email you and be like, Hey, can I paint mixture have like, specifically these pigments from these brands? Even? Yes,

Aparna Rupakula: 1:00:40

yes, yes. It gives you a customization and I think it'd be you can also customize things to the people just because we we are not very different from what you would do in your studio color mixing wise. And just to make that very clear, is that we have artists who have even brand requests, you know, some people just prefer Michael Harding, or some people like, can you mix it with a certain brand. And we also honor those to the extent we can, because the only thing that we cannot mix with just any brand would be the highest Chroma note in our in our gamut. The highest Chroma note is tied to a particular pigment made by a particular manufacturer. Other than that, everything inside the color space, which isn't the highest Chroma nope, and be mixed using. You know, there's a whole lot of flexibility that happens there.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:27

Yes. Oh, so cool. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to try it out. Because, ah, with these master copies these first like 30 or so that I'm painting right now, I have been mixing everything myself. Okay. So I feel like when I get these, these grackle ones for the last 15 It's going to be a game changer.

Aparna Rupakula: 1:01:52

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. We're gonna get it to you ASAP.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:55

Yeah, whenever you can. I mean, I'm just excited to get to use them. It's it feels like a huge privilege, because you guys are doing something that no one else has done. And I think it's a beautiful mission to be teaching color in this

Aparna Rupakula: 1:02:08

way. Yeah, I think so. And I think we are a unique, flexible, small studio, we have a very revolutionary idea. And we do think educating people is a part of our mission, as much as you know, offering the paints and everything that we do is there's no, you know, there's no secretiveness about what we do, we're pretty open to discussion. And we just want to change and make life easier for artists both to communicate and talk about color and color mixing. And then also paint larger project. If you have a very large project, it makes sense to have all those premix use ready, you know, so absolutely. It just, we just want to make the lives of artists easier in any way.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:02:52

Yeah, I want to make a quick comparison, like you had mentioned earlier how even the instructors themselves don't have that common communication about color. And they have different palates. It's almost like the tower of Babylon, where everyone just thinks it totally different language, and no one understands each other. It's just chaos. So I feel like this is like that common language that we can all gather gems of color.

Aparna Rupakula: 1:03:16

Yes, yes. I mean, if if people were a little bit more kind towards the idea of, you know, at least think about this as not a, you know, a scientific cold surgical method of painting, but think about as a more logical, and a more, why not kind of a thing, you know, it's like more, it just simplifies life, teaching wise immensely. And it takes away all that the chaos that's thrown upon you by all, you know, all the paints that we see outside, it takes that chaos, and it makes sense to the students, especially for the classically inclined people who want to make sense of the old masters, it takes you indirectly shows you, this is the hue that Rembrandt shows for his painting, this is the choice that he made, right. So I think it's just completely the whole idea of rose from that need. And it serves that purpose of completing that education. You know, making sure that it is on a good solid footing instead of all those mysterious paint palettes that you will come up with at the end of your education that you will have, you know, a more comprehensive view of you know, and you can paint just about anything you want in any which way you choose to. Yeah, absolutely. And Rachael studio, I think we can just sit and talk for the whole day. Right? It's like there's no end to the whole discussion. It's there's so much to talk about, just because now we have this tool in our hands now. It's like discovering your ruler for the first time and then you just run and measure everything like how big is this book? And how big is that? It's like now you have proper mechanisms to know exactly what your old masters we're doing. You have a better way of communicating how to paint something like crests because I the flesh tones, the subtle florals all the subtle hues which are daunting, even for the best start Somebody, so Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:05:01

awesome. I also wanted to let our listeners know where people can purchase grackle paints and also your Instagram. So do you mind telling us Yeah, I can do that?

Aparna Rupakula: 1:05:12

Sure we have grappled dots two years our website, you can go there and click on them and sell skills, and you can click on any chip or color that you would want. And if you just buy it online, you can buy a value string, a chroma string, or just one pane of tube, we don't have any minimum. You know, we like it when people come and try it out. And we're always posting stuff on Instagram, especially if they're mixing that's happening in the studio, we try to get it out there, you'll see us mixing a lot of flesh tones, some colorful hues, the most exciting thing that I can think off to say is we have a boo boo flush string that's going to come out.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:05:47

So wait. So tell me a little bit more about that Bouguereau string. Yeah, the Bouguereau string

Aparna Rupakula: 1:05:51

is it's a very interesting pain string. And people have been emailing me about how exactly does this Google string work so it's the string is not a value string, nor is it a chroma string, so it doesn't just incrementally go up in value, what it does is it is actually something called the shading series. Now what the shading series are is the colors in that set go down in value as they do with Chroma. So the chroma drops as the value goes down. The reason is, this is a Bouguereau string is because it's been matched physically to booboo painting. And it's the shading series of 7.5 YELLOW RED, I know people are not going to want to listen to this versus 7.5 Yellow, red value seven and the chroma three. So that was matched to a real painting. And you know, and I think we might be doing a lot of those in the futures because people are curious about a bunch of artists as to what exactly they were using. So we might have custom sets based on other artists work.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:06:48

Thank you so much, Aparna.

Aparna Rupakula: 1:06:51

Yeah. Thank you so much, Laura. I really enjoyed talking to you today.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:06:53

Yeah, me too. Yeah.