WHICH?Pigment Characteristics There was a time, not so very long ago, when the effort, skills and raw materials used in the making of any object were intrinsically valued. Regardless of the beauty or how impressive the final product was. An intricate, well-knitted sweater you would wear for years even if it scratched a bit. A painted…
Some pigments have family, some are loners
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics As promised, now is the time to dive into the pigments we play with on our palettes that get their hues from their chemical composition. The Cadmium family is a most interesting, if confounding, example of this. Establishing the family tree of the primo-genitor, Cadmium Yellow, was quite epic, I can tell you, and…
Some pigments always sit in the front row, some at the back
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics OK, we need a break from ‘serious facts’, so here’s this classification, a bit of trivia on the side. Thought I would share—not to mock—the confusion of the beginner holding his little piece of paper and desperate to find some colours on the list. I have no idea why they’ve made it so hard…
Some pigments are friendly, some are dangerous company
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics I need to address permanence here, a term not entirely synonymous with lightfastness in the paint world, although UV deterioration is an aspect of it. But, permanence needs a minute’s attention because if some pigments are friendly to other pigments, some are dangerous company… To and by itself, a permanent paint should experience…
Some pigments are lightfast, some are fugitive
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics Lightfastness! Don’t we love the word nowadays? Every company assures you of it, and most painters question it too. They have perhaps not even given a thought about their art surviving into the next decade—forget century—but in our precarious world, it has become the #1 quality of a paint, it seems. Hence one…
I had picked black… (Part II)
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics (I feel like giving you a warning that this section is for those really interested in that stuff!) Equipped with an understanding of their chemical nicknames, let’s now go back to the four black pigments/paints commonly found in art stores: Carbon and Lamp Black, Ivory and Bone Black, and tackle the four characteristics…
Some pigments have code names, some are N/A or N/R
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics Bless consciousness, for making blue different to me than it is to you.Maria Popova It was meant to be a quick one here to explain what last week’s PBk7 business was all about, but there’s so much noise out there regarding naming colour that I thought I’d expand on this confusing issue just…
I had picked black… (Part I)
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics “What, you haven’t any ivory-black on your palette? If you think you are going to make black with blue and red, I can’t have you in my class. You might stir up trouble with such ideas.” Fernand Cormon I had picked black. Both because there are only a few black pigments available to…
Some pigments are natural, some are synthetic
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics In my hippy-happy store in Byron Bay, Australia, I regularly get a request for “natural” pigments, to which I sometimes reply cheekily: do you mean natural as in made from arsenic? mercury? copper? lead? or perhaps sulphur? These have all been used to make pigments and are found naturally on the planet! But that’s generally…
Some pigments are organic, some are inorganic
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics In the elitist Art Pigment Club, all members, whether pigments or lake pigments, belong to two categories. The idea being, probably, that you don’t mix with the wrong crowd, as these refer specifically to the pigment’s origin, regardless of its structure or chemistry.You are either Organic or Inorganic and either Synthetic or Natural….
in bed with mona lisa 