Woad dye WOAD WAS WIDELY USED AS A DYE IN EUROPE AS EARLY AS THE STONE AGE. Ancient Britons covered their bodies with woad to face the Roman legions and it is said that they struck fear into Julius Caesar himself. The first part of the woad-making process involved taking fresh leaves of the woad…
Realgar pigment THIS PIGMENT IS AS DEADLY AS IT IS BEAUTIFUL. Known as the ‘ruby of arsenic’, realgar is extremely toxic. The red crystals of the mineral yield a rich orange pigment, but it is made of arsenic disulphide. Realgar is found in the same deposits as the yellow, arsenic-containing mineral orpiment. It mostly occurs…
Orpiment pigment ORPIMENT WAS THE CLOSEST IMITATION TO GOLD. Its Latin name is auripigmentum (gold paint) and in the classical world, it was believed that this resemblance had deeper alchemical roots. It was even said that the Roman emperor Caligula could extract gold from the mineral. In fact, orpiment carries a much more dangerous substance.…
Ochre pigment OCHRES WERE THE VERY FIRST PIGMENTS USED BY HUMANS. The oldest human artworks still in existence are vivid depictions of animals, humans and spirits that were created using ochres. There is evidence of their use as far back as 250,000 years ago. Ancient ochre artworks are found all over the world, from the…
Lamp Black pigment LAMP BLACK HAS BEEN AROUND SINCE PREHISTORIC TIMES. This lightfast, permanent, opaque blue-black pigment was used by the Ancient Egyptians more than 4000 years ago for painting tombs and murals. They preferred its fineness and deep black colour to the grey-black of charcoal. As you’d expect from its name, lamp black is…
Bone White pigment THE CREATION OF BONE WHITE IS AS LITERAL AS IT SOUNDS. Bone white was made by burning bones in open fires until all the organic material burned away and the bone was turned to ash. There is evidence of bone white’s use since Neolithic times, making it one of the very first…
Bone Black pigment BURNING BONES TO CREATE PIGMENTS IS AN ANCIENT PRACTICE. Like bone white, bone black is made by putting fragments of animal bones into a crucible and surrounding them with blazing coals. However, to prevent the bone turning to ash, the vessel is covered to stop air from getting in. Exposure to intense…
Egyptian Blue pigment THIS WAS THE FIRST SYNTHETICALLY PRODUCED COLOUR. Invented at around the same time as the Great Pyramids were being built, Egyptian blue’s creation dates back about 5000 years. The Ancient Egyptians believed blue was the colour of the heavens and because of the rarity of naturally occurring blue minerals like azurite and lapis…
Rules for Permanent Painting Underpainting Oil paints which are slow driers should be avoided in underpainting because the underlayers will remain mobile and move as they dry. This causes cracking of the fast drying colours which may be used on top of them. Pigments to avoid in underpainting: Cadmiums, Ivory and Lamp Black, Zinc White,…
Colour Mixing – a guide for contemporary artists The artists’ palette of colours is a rainbow, but unlike its sky-borne counterpart, our colours are constructed from pigments, fine grains of colour that must be bound together in order to become paint. The physical nature of pigments often interferes with the purity of perceived colour, but…
