Andrew Masullo

Andrew Masullo: Oil paint’s rich. The colors are rich, and it feels rich, and you can take your time.

Narrator: Artists have to take their time with oil paint, because it dries slowly. Andrew Masullo.

Andrew Masullo: I don’t run out of ideas with oil paint. You know, something’s really wet and it has to be put away. I’ve tried acrylics in the past, and things dry so quickly that I put stuff down and it’s all dried, and I can keep going—but I have nothing to keep going on; I’m running on fumes and everything looks awful. It’s much better to–do some and then have to put it away, and sort of feel this little heartache like “oh, I don’t want to put this away right now, because I do kind of think I might know what I want to do next.” But I’m forced to put it away, which is a good thing, because then I can take it out and it’s completely fresh again once I look at it. Hopefully completely fresh again!

I’m grateful if someone can look at a painting and not just see it as entertainment. And maybe stop talking about things that have nothing to do with the painting they’re look at at the time, you know about taxes or their babysitter. You know if you can draw someone in. There’s a German verb—it’s called zu locken, which is to lure someone in, maybe to coax someone in. If you can coax someone in a little bit, to get a little closer, and then give them a little bonus because the surface or whatever’s going on looks different from far away, then when they go far away again they can see the painting a different way in their mind’s eye—these are wonderful things.