WHICH?Pigment Characteristics This being said… there’s indigo! As you might know, indigo is a plant, but there are more than 750 species of indigofera shrubs, herbs, and even trees, so it might be just a little challenging to identify, although, of course, if you crush a few leaves in your hands, these will turn… blue!…
Tag: art
Secondly, some pigments are pigments, and some pigments are dyes
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics Did I mention that pigments are small particles (practically) insoluble in either oils, resins or water? Of course, I know I’ve just said this, but as you’ll now hear—and although that’s virtually their only common denominator—even that is not always accurate. Because some artists’ pigments are not pigments, they are dyes… in disguise….
Firstly, some pigments are pigments we can use and some are pigments we cannot…
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics Firstly some pigments are pigments we can use, and some pigments are pigments we cannot use (to make paint.) This being said, I am not here to restrict your creativity or imagination. If, in the steps of artist Amikam Toren, you wanted to make a statement, pulverise your teapot to shards, mix the…
Pigment Characteristics (an intro)
WHICH?Pigment Characteristics I think it’s now time to introduce you in-depth to some of the kids in this class. Because, when you see them neatly stacked in similar little jars on shelves, it is hard at first to comprehend, besides their variety of hues of course, what powerful and different chemistry is sitting there looking…
6) Post-Modern pigments… from the 1950s till now
WHEN?Pigments in HistoryThe sixth circle Some pigments are coined Historical, some Modern, and some should be (in my humble opinion) called Contemporary or Post-Modern. Historical is a term that is definitely given to pigments known before 1704—when perhaps the first ‘modern’ synthetic mineral pigment, Prussian Blue, was created entirely in a lab (and entirely by…
5) Pigments from the industrial colour revolution of “The Long Nineteenth Century” (1798-1914) and beyond
WHEN?Pigments in HistoryThe fifth circle “Nothing is perhaps more peculiar than the process by which one obtains Prussian Blue, and it must be owned that, if chance had not taken a hand, a profound theory would be necessary to invent it” humbly admitted in 1762, the chemist Jean Hellot. If we discard then the discovery…
2) Pigments in Antiquity
WHEN?Pigments in historyThe second circle a) From 3000 B.C.E. to the end of the last Egyptian Dynasty Eventually, many centuries + the 3000 years of Egyptian rule later, well… it might seem that not much has changed at first glance! An inspection of the colours available to a pharaoh or his grand vizier shows pigments…
1) Pigments from eternity to c.3000B.C.E.
WHEN?PIgments in HistoryThe very first circle A timeline of pigments, such as the elegant one produced by Vivien Martineau here, should, in truth, begin like hers million upon million of years ago, in deep, deep time. My timeline unfolds from when those I have termed Art Pigments arrived in human hands. However, I am well…
Colors are not possessions
WHEN?Pigments in History “Colors are not possessions; they are the intimate revelations of an energy field… They are light waves with mathematically precise lengths, and they are deep, resonant mysteries with boundless subjectivity.” Isn’t Ellen Meloy’s definition of Colour in her Anthropology of Turquoise simply delicious? Still, we might as well admit it right now,…
C) Pigments (vs Colour)
WHAT?II. What’s in paint? One morning I woke up and told my husband: I’m going to write a book about colour! To which Vianney replied, being the tireless supporter of my wildest dreams (and privy to my darkest hours of doubt): That’s a great idea, but… do you know anything about colour? No, of course…
in bed with mona lisa 