The message on the door...Something for consideration...
I have been pondering the message of the door for some time, and how the message was painted. Something wasn’t quite right about it...
I had made an assumption that the two paint brushes found in the room were used to paint the message, the small one initially, for the thinner, first ‘S’ - the other for the thicker stroke lettering. It was the deposit of the paint in that first letter S that stuck in my mind, something about it.
So, a few days ago I saw in evidence that only ONE brush was actually used, the thick one. The smaller one was unused.
This dawned on me this morning...
We know RZ painted regularly, and had done for some time - and we can therefore confidently assume she was relatively familiar with her artists tools and their basic uses, and limitations. She had several tubes of acrylic paint on her ‘painting room’ shelf ( third floor, upstairs from the ‘hanging’ room)
When looking at the door message again, rather than the smaller brush being used for the beginning of the message as I had first thought, this could not be the case. So what was used?
It now appears to me that it was very likely that it was the PAINT TUBE that was used to paint the first letter - ‘S’
The stroke markings, and the ‘gapping’ in the paint is highly consistent with the tube being used. Imagine trying to use it like a pen. As you squeeze the tube a bit of paint comes out, it ‘blobs’ initially, then ‘thins’ through the stroke of application, the surface eventually becoming empty, here is the blank section...then you squeeze it again...and you go through the same process as you apply more paint ...and so on and so forth.
Basically, it’s difficult, and it doesn’t work. ...and I discovered this very, very early on, when first using acrylic in tube form. You use a vessel or a palette to dispense the paint and take it from there.
IMO only someone very unfamiliar with dispensing paint would assume you could use the tube to paint the message.
The layering of the paint in the remainder of the message also indicates to me that the tube was likely used to apply the paint directly to the brush. The texturing and transition / thickness of the paint would be consistent with this as opposed to the use of a palette.
I would hypothesize that whoever painted the message retrieved a tube of paint from upstairs, ( familiar with the house, knowing where to go to get the paint) they grabbed the tube and commenced trying to write the message on the door. Unfamiliar with handling the paint and unaware of the paints viscosity, it was only after painting the first letter they realized it wasn’t going to work, so the went back to the room upstairs and got a brush, in fact they got two, incase one of them did it work, they didnt want to have to go back again...
IMO I think this is key, it goes to RZ knowledge and familiarity of the paint.
She knew more about acrylic than she did about knots....