The book Paint to Write consists of two concepts of work by the Dutch painter José Heerkens. The concepts in the book are titled Written Colours and Notation. These series of paintings start from the fundamental concept in her work: putting the colour in the foreground. Colour is a language with many facets and able to create space, light, motion. The energy that comes from the interaction of these colour qualities is translated in her paintings. It is the line that carries the colour and shapes spaces in which everything is connected with everything.In Heerkens’ visual vocabulary, lines and colours are placed in a succession in order to create sentences that we can read. The linguistic elements in her paintings are parallel to the components in every sequentially written or spoken language, including sounds and silences.In addition to colour and line, form, space and light, material and method, the endless stream of thoughts about painting always returns to its basis: life, i.e. paint to live: paint to arrange, to think, to communicate, to search, to learn, to move, to connect, etc. It is the intention to bring her work together in three books and Paint to Write is the first one that will be published. The book applies the English language. To honour language, the introduction in Paint to Write by Italian art historian Valeria Ceregini, is written in both English and her native language, Italian.