Skip to content

in bed with mona lisa

everything you've always wanted to know about art materials but didn't dare to ask the shop assistant

Home
ABOUT (& table of contents)
A to Z Index
Browse the sections
(not) About

PAINTING MATERIALS e) Easels

STILL WORKING ON THIS PAGE… THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE!

Share this:

Twitter
Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 296 other followers

Foraging, samples of her finds always come home with her and now sit on the shelves, attentive, vibrant… nothing like an old, dusty collection of dead rocks! These keep interesting company too, as friends and strangers forward to her an ever-growing collection of colourful Earths from all over. Heidi greets them like admired friends and introduces them to me: feel how gritty this one is, how greasy this one, and all these from Australia that dusty feeling at the surface that’s very specific… That one, so different on each side, reflects two quite distinct states of iron: dehydrated up there, probably still in water down here. I admire in a tray a display of all of those she brought back from the last workshop she offered. From the same ochre site, really? Yes, a powerful site will usually offer ever so many hues. Read the whole post In bed with… She-who -whispers-to-the-ochres, Heidi Gustafson on my blog inbedwithmonalisa dot com (link in bio) #heidilynnheidilynn #instagramlove #ochre #ocre #dust #colourismypassion #rawpigments #naturalpigments #pigment #paintingwithpigments #soil #geologictime #deeptime #earth #redearth #dreamwork #minerals #mineralpigment #earthpigment #materialcolor #ochrearchive #earthcolors

Yellows, oranges, reds… trees right now in ochre hues, I muse… pigments breaking down, oxidation of tannins in the leaf turning these brown soon enough. I sing to myself as I’m happy. In fact, I’m as excited as if meeting a long lost friend, yet have never set eyes on Heidi Gustafson, the lady waiting for me in a little wooden cabin in the woods… which I will hopefully find at the end of a dirt road. It’s all a little mysterious and so improbable too! My being in this place so far from home(s), her willingness to meet me whom she doesn’t know and the connection also. When I began understanding a few years ago that Instagram could actually link me with like-minded/interested strangers I soon came across Heidi’s elegant posts… beautiful images, soulful sharings. Among all of us pigment lovers, she stood out as a full-time devotee! It was never quite clear to me what she actually did though… Read the whole post In bed with… She-who -whispers-to-the-ochres, Heidi Gustafson on my blog inbedwithmonalisa dot com (link in bio) #heidilynnheidilynn #instagramlove #ochre #ocre #dust #colourismypassion #rawpigments #naturalpigments #pigment #paintingwithpigments #soil #geologictime #deeptime #earth #redearth #dreamwork #minerals #mineralpigment #earthpigment #materialcolor #ochrearchive #earthcolors

Happy Halloween everyone! #orangemolybdate #hotonthetriplemill #onlyatNaturalPigments #rublevoilpaints #oilpaint #triplemilled #rublevcolours #natural.pigments

In bed with Mona Lisa -literally! #airportfind #sweetdreams

In a strange sort of way, maybe intended, these eclectic displays of the Forbes collection reflect the messy, random way we obsessively searched for colours and the ingredients they could combine with to make our lovely paints and other materials we can use to make Art. They most certainly draw their very own map of the world: berries from Persia, cowhide glue from Kyoto, plaster lime from Florence and Meudon white, wood cuttings from Brazil, pink earth from Constantinople, a ball of raw Indian yellow, lapis from Lazuli, copal from Zanzibar and madder root grown in… E.W. Forbes’s garden! Read the full post of my visit to the fabulous Forbes pigment collection… https://inbedwithmonalisa.com/2019/06/01/pigments-on-my-bucket-list/ #inbedwithmonalisa #forbespigmentcollection #foggartmuseum #foggmuseum #harvardartmuseums #pigments #renzopiano #rawpigments #naturalpigments #pigment #exploringcolourpigments #pigsbladders #earthcolours #cochineal #yinmnblue #mummybrown #indigo #lapislazuli #Vermillion #Cinnabar #Realgar #colours #coloursinmylife #munsell2018 #Inter-SocietyColorCouncil #AssociationInternationaledelaCouleur #BostonMass #bostonmassachusetts #MassArt

What I was not prepared for in the least, when I visited the Forbes pigment collection, was that random, mumble jumble of old measuring devices, pig’s bladders, tubes, bottles, phials, boxes, shakers, trays, Petri dishes on the shelves behind these scientific looking doors. Furthermore, every little or large bottle had a different shape, colour, original label and cap: twist, seal, plug, cork, glass. Some look so rusted that you had to wonder if they had ever been opened. But yes is the answer as every item is strung now with a neat little label complete with barcode and all the pigments –their characteristics, spectra, etc.– are in a database accessible to professionals, often restorers, in need of such information. If in the mood, you can check it yourself here. Read the full post of my visit to the fabulous Forbes pigment collection… https://inbedwithmonalisa.com/2019/06/01/pigments-on-my-bucket-list/ #inbedwithmonalisa #forbespigmentcollection #foggartmuseum #foggmuseum #harvardartmuseums #pigments #renzopiano #rawpigments #naturalpigments #pigment #exploringcolourpigments #pigsbladders #earthcolours #cochineal #yinmnblue #mummybrown #indigo #lapislazuli #Vermillion #Cinnabar #Realgar #colours #coloursinmylife #munsell2018 #Inter-SocietyColorCouncil #AssociationInternationaledelaCouleur #BostonMass #bostonmassachusetts #MassArt

Blog at WordPress.com.

Post to

Cancel

%d bloggers like this: