April 2024

Over the last eighteen months, I’ve been curiously innovating a new way to apply paint to the canvas away from toxic painting materials. This led me to my series, ‘Reverie’ where I aimed to capture the essence of being pleasantly lost in your thoughts.

Throughout the process of bringing these paintings to life, I’ve found myself wrestling with a significant challenge: how to continue my love for spray paint and the vibrant art movement it embodies, whilst looking after the health of my body and the planet.

Enter the spray gun… a large version of an airbrush that uses acrylic paint and air without any toxic propellant.

The Wagner paint gun allows me to use artist-quality, high-pigmented paint and achieve a similar effect to spray paint. I can create beautiful fades and colour transitions in way I couldn’t with brushes.

Benefits include:

Low toxicity
A much wider spectrum of colours to choose from ( I can mix my own)
For exterior murals, you can use more environmentally friendly paints and more UV-resistant colours than spray paint.

Disadvantages

I’ve fumbled through many setbacks learning how to use the paint gun. I had disastrous murals where I decided to jump into this technique without any experience. I invested a lot of money into a certain paint gun range which ultimately wasn’t right for me. I hurt my wrist and had to start wearing a wrist guard.

So as you can see, it’s not the perfect fix but it’s certainly a step in the right direction for my health and the planet. The disadvantages of the paint gun include:

I need to be connected to electricity - fine for a studio environment but can be tricky when painting outdoors.
It’s heavy
The paint gun is relatively noisy so it’s not ideal if you share your studio space with other artists as it can be disruptive
There are fairly significant set-up costs, including buying the gun and all the different pots you need for various colours. You could just use one pot and change the colours when you need but this is time-consuming and messy!

Despite all of this, I’ve also had super illuminating conversations with other artists who have generously spoken to me about their own journeys moving away from spray painting. I’m not alone and I’m so grateful to part of such a generous artistic community who are willing to share their knoweldge. I recently came across the Aerosol Alliance too who are demanding more from the spray paint industry in terms of transparency surrounding the safely of the products they are making.

I know that along the way, learning this new way of painting is going to help me one way or another. I already have something in the pipeline with this in 2025. I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what is possible. There is still much to learn, to explore, and to refine..but I’m excited for what’s ahead.

Each painting in 'Reverie' reflects our ability to grow and evolve. The flowing forms are mirrors of our internal landscapes where our thoughts ebb and flow. The paintings serve as a gentle reminder to listen to the whispers of our inner selves and pursue the nudges and inklings we've wanted to explore for a long time. I’m super proud of this collection.

Life Beyond Spray Paint