Recently read books

I finished reading a few books recently. What follows are my thoughts on some of them. 

Last Exit (by Michael Kaufman) 

A novel set in a somewhat dystopian future, in which old people are expected to choose to 'exit' / die as a bargain for their children's well-being. Young to middle-aged adults are often stricken with a disease which leads to premature death, and there is a treatment available for it, but only if the person's parent chose to 'exit'. The story follows a police officer who is investigating a string of deaths which seem to be related to a unofficial variant of the treatment. A good novel but not amazing. I enjoyed it.

The Pencil (by Henry Petroski)

This book is about the history of the pencil, its development, and its relationship to the economy over the centuries. I skimmed some of the less interesting parts of the book, but read most of it. I like pencils so I liked learning how pencils came to be what they are today. This book is probably only interesting if you like history, pencils or engineering. 

Granite Mountain (by Brendan McDonough, with Stephan Talty)

A biographical account by Brendan about his upbringing and his time with the Granite Mountain Hotshots. I found this book to be engaging and easy to read. I was interested to learn how weather conditions, flora and terrain can affect the development of wildland fires. If you liked the movie Only the Brave, then you might like this book.

The Brutal Truth About Australian Taxes and Inflation

I'm going to share a link to a YouTube video. It highlights just how unfair, crippling and punitive the Australian taxation system is. I don't normally like to make posts about topics like this, but this is something that severely limits Australian's ability to live a free and autonomous life. I think that the video provides a good overview, so I won't add my own commentary. 

If you watched the video and feel that it communicates and important message, I encourage you to share the video with anyone who will listen. It may not change the way our country is governed, but it will help other people to understand the financial prison that they are an inmate of. And once you understand the plight, you are in a better position to adjust your life and mindset to cope with it. 

Reinventing the wheel

There is too much stuff on the internet. There is too much of the same stuff on the internet. 

This morning I did something stupid and unnecessary. I went online and searched for the difference between wax crayons and oil pastels. The thing is that I have used both and I know what the differences are. So the search was not needed. Why did I do it? 

I did it because I wanted some strangers on the internet to tell me what I already know. To reassure me. To have someone echo back with an opinion that is essentially my own. This is stupid. 

While I was looking at the search results I noticed that there are a lot of web pages which are addressing the comparison between wax crayons and oil pastels. Everyone is posting up the same information. While thinking about this I considered that it also happens for a lot of other topics. How many people need to post the same old stuff that everyone else already has? 

Is everyone so desperate to create their own space online in which they try to establish themselves as some sort of authority on something? An authority on crayons? 

There's a lot of things that you could be doing with your day. A lot of important and necessary things. But I'll guarantee you that becoming a world-leading expert on crayons is not one of those things. And neither is looking it up online.

Minimalist oil painting

I have been wanting to take my oil painting outdoors for a while. But I felt that it was impractical with the amount of equipment that is often involved. There's the palette, the canvas, an easel, several brushes, a palette knife, paint thinner, refined linseed oil, some rags, and the paints. The thought of carrying all of that stuff somewhere so that I could paint was discouraging. I craved the simplicity of sketching, where all I need is a sketchbook and a pen. I had put the entire idea aside of doing something portable with painting. That was until I watched a video by Rachael Broadwell, an American artist who had implemented a very compact way of painting with oils. 

Stealthy, Minimalist Plein Air Setup for Oils or Acrylics

The entire equipment list is: 

• a small panel to paint on; 
• a palette; 
• two small but strong clips; 
• a painting knife; 
• four tubes of paint; 
• one tube of alkyd gel (optional); 
• a rag;  
• a sketchbook; and 
• a marker or pencil.

When in use, the panel is attached to the edge of the palette with the clips. All of the painting and mixing is done with the one painting knife. The cleaning is done with the rag. A preliminary composition sketch can be made in the sketchbook, or alternatively, the composition could be lightly outlined directly on the panel with either paint. 

This setup is compact in use, and even more compact in transportation with everything fitting into a small backpack. It completely removes my concerns about carrying a lot of equipment to go painting. I have tested the setup a few times in the backyard and it works really well. The only thing to keep in mind is that I have to carefully carry the completed painting back to the car as the paint will still be wet. 

Using this setup has made painting more fun than ever. I'm loving it! It keeps art simple. Just a few bits of gear and a dream. 

Drawing with charcoal: a way of thinking

I like drawing with charcoal. It's primitive, cheap, messy and a whole lot of fun. It's often said that charcoal is an expressive medium, but isn't that true of every other medium? 

Charcoal is primitive. There's some small part of me that relishes making art with something as simple as burnt sticks. Painting often has a lot of other equipment and supplies that go along with it. Even when I try to paint with minimal equipment and colours I still feel a degree of clutter involved. But charcoal doesn't have that. It's just a couple of pieces of charcoal, a kneadable eraser, and some fixative spray if you want to preserve the work. And if I want to work outside then it's easy to carry everything I need. 

Charcoal is cheap. No fancy brushes. No expensive paints with premium pigments. No mediums. And none of the other things that one might be tempted to buy when getting into painting. Sure, there's different types of charcoal, erasers, blending stumps, and fixatives. But you really don't need a large variety of those items. And another area where charcoal is cheaper are the surfaces. A good quality sheet of paper is cheaper than any canvas or panel of equivalent size. 

Charcoal is messy. Some people see this as a problem. I see it as a feature. The ease with which charcoal can be smudged and smeared is what allows for creative mark-making. Bold lines through to smooth blends and gradients are all possible with just a little practise. It allows for a lot of freedom in creating an image. I also like to see a bit of mess on my hands when I'm finished working. 

Charcoal is fun. It's a medium which stands on its own, in a field somewhere between the camps of painting and drawing. Using it feels like I'm doing both in the same piece. Here are two recent examples from my sketchbook.

Sketchbook page (28 December 2025)

Sketchbook page (29 December 2025)

There is always something to learn. The clouds in the first picture could have been lighter in value. And in the second picture, the mountains on the right could have had more variety in form, and the lake could have been more convincing with some ripples closer to the viewer. Beyond these examples, there are always new ways to try things, different techniques, different workflows and a variety of styles. The simplicity of the medium is its greatest strength. Equipment doesn't get in the way of doing the work.