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A Colour A Day: Week 49

By Ruth Siddall, on 28 February 2021

A Colour A Day: Week 49. 22nd – 28th February

Jo Volley writes…

This weeks colours are mainly produced by Ruth Siddall who says of them;

These slates and shales represent the Palaeozoic stratigraphy of north west England and Wales. The coal-black, black shale from Britannia Quarry in the Pennines and was collected during a field trip to the South Pennine Coalfied with Onya McCausland. The slates from Penrhyn (Cambrian Slate) and Blaenau Ffestiniog and the red shale from the shores of the Menai Straits were all collected in North Wales over the past year. I would like to dedicate this set of pigments to my late mother, Anne Siddall (8th June 1940-22nd November 2020) who grew up in Lancashire, the daughter of parents from North Wales and with ancestors who worked in the slate quarries of the region. The Plas Brereton red ochre slate outcrops close to her final home in Caernarfon.

All colours are bound in gum Arabic on Winsor & Newton watercolour paper and read from left to right.

Cambrian Heather Slate
Cambrian Sage Slate
Blaenau Grey Slate
Blaenau Ochre Slate
Plas Brereton Red
Britannia Black
Cote d’Azure Violet from Kremer Pigments

 

A Colour A Day: Week 48

By Ruth Siddall, on 21 February 2021

A Colour A Day; Week 48. 15-21 February

Jo Volley writes…

This week are colours are seven earths generously gifted to me by their makers and accompany George Szirtes’ wonderful poem Soil.

Soil takes place in England on a train journey. I was taking a ride I think from London up to Yorkshire and I looked out at the soil, the earth and I thought I recognise that colour – where does that colour come from? And what does it mean to me? It seemed to be saying something, it seemed to be saying something and it brought to my mind the subject of belonging – to the soil, or to that soil.’ George Szirtes

Soil

What colour would you call that? That brown
which is not precisely the colour of excrement
or suede?
The depth has you hooked. Has it a scent
of its own, a peculiar adhesiveness? Is it weighed,
borne down
by its own weight? It creeps under you skin
Like a landscape that’s a mood, or a thought
in mid-birth,
and suddenly a dull music has begun. You’re caught
by your heels in that grudging lyrical earth,
a violin
scraped and scratched, and there is nowhere to go
but home, which is nowhere to be found
and yet
is here, unlost, solid, the very ground
on which you stand
but cannot visit
or know.

From The Budapest File (Bloodaxe, 2000) George Szirtes 2000; used by permission of the owner. Click to listen to George reading Soil.

Colours read from top to bottom on W&N watercolour paper:

Christine Chua’s Singapore Ochre
Chalybeate – Cohen’s Fields Fountain JV/2020
Gail Lamarche’s Arizona Red
Penelope Kupfer’s Waterfall Red – Brazil 2019/20
Penelope Kupfer’s Roadside Red – Brazil 2019/20
Hampstead Heath no.6 JV/2020
Onya McCausland’s Six Bells Burnt Ochre (oil paint)

Chalybeate Fountain, Cohen’s Fields, Hampstead Heath

A Colour A Day: Week 42

By Ruth Siddall, on 10 January 2021

A Colour A Day: Week 42. 4-10 January

Jo Volley writes…

This week we have more earth pigments collected and manufactured by Ruth Siddall who says of them;

These are a series of British earth colours derived from some of the geological formations of southeast England. Ashdown Orange, Galley Hill Gold, Galley Hill Red and Road Works Red are all from the Cretaceous Wealden facies and all were collected in and around Bexhill in East Sussex. These strata expose terrestrial deposits which include fossil soils (palaeosols) as well as ochre-stained sandstones. The Road Works Red was procured from some kindly municipal workmen who were digging up the road outside St Mary Magdalene’s Church in Bexhill. River Ching and Walton-on-the-Naze clays are both derived primarily from the London Clay deposits of the London Basin. The River Ching flows through Higham’s Park in NE London, once a landscape garden laid out by Humphry Repton in the 1790s. The lake in the park is Repton’s construction, and the banks of the Ching which flows alongside the lake, are largely ‘made ground’ which mixes the London Clay with the overlying Ice Age Woodford Gravels. Here in NE London, the London Clay is dark grey and the clays from the Woodford Gravels is pale brown. At Walton-on-the-Naze, London Clay underlies a spectacular sequence of Ice Age strata. Again largely of continental origin, red beds dominate the sequence here. The red ochre from Stone Point, extracted from a thin horizon of red sandstones is possibly very recent in age and certainly Holocene. The pigments derived from these geological strata required a lot of processing, including washing, levigating, grinding and sieving to extract a suitable pigment.

All pigments are bound in gum Arabic on W&N watercolour paper and read from left to right:

Walton-on-the-Naze London Clay
Ashdown Orange
Galley Hill Red
Galley Hill Gold
Road Works Red
Stone Point Red Ochre
River Ching Ochre

A Colour A Day: Week 30

By Ruth Siddall, on 18 October 2020

A Colour A Day: Week 30. 12th-18th October.

Jo Volley writes…

In October 2015, whilst on research leave, I travelled around Provence visiting pigment quarries, mines and factories to look at pigment manufacturing methods and processes. In this marvellous red landscape, I have never felt such a strong emotional relationship between the landscape and painting.  The trip was also something of a pilgrimage to visit the bibliotheque in Aix en Provence to view a remarkable manuscript made by the C17 Dutch artist A. Boogert who in 1692 completed an educational manual of how to mix every colour available to him. Each pigment is bound in gum Arabic and applied to paper with instruction as to their properties, proportions and potential. It is an extraordinary document of the pigments available at that time and of an artist’s dedication to learning. It was a humbling experience to hold in one’s hands this rare and beautiful manuscript, and to feel a connection with Boogert’s endeavours. The timeless and common manufacture of binding colour and making paint. The sheer pleasure of it… and its desire to communicate. It has also been the inspiration for this project.

Each red earth is bound in gum Arabic on W&N watercolour paper.

Collected: Sentier des Ocres, Roussillon.
Purchased: Sentier des Ocres, Roussillon.
Purchased: Sentier des Ocres, Roussillon.
Collected: Les Mines des Bruoux, Gargas.
Collected: Mathieu Ocre Usine, Roussillon.
Purchased: Les Mines des Bruoux, Gargas.
Purchased: Mathieu Ocre Usine, Roussillon.

 

A Colour A Day: Week 28

By Ruth Siddall, on 4 October 2020

A Colour A Day; 28th  September – 4th October

Jo Volley writes…

This week’s colours are seven Russian earth pigments gifted by Ruth Siddall who says of them. ‘These seven pigments are supplied by Moscow-based company Colibri Premium Pigments. Many of the earth and mineral pigments they supply are sourced in Russia. This is a selection of their ochres, which include iron ochres (red and yellow ochre) and aluminium-rich earths known as bauxite (deposits much overlooked as ochres). Siderite is iron carbonate. Also included here are two very ‘Russian’ pigments made from minerals mainly known only from deposits in Russia. Shungite is a black, carbon-rich earth pigment. It is found in very ancient, 2 billion year old rocks in Russian Karelia, in the region of Lake Onega. It is named after the town of Shunga. It formed as biogenic deposits, probably from algae preserved in anoxic conditions and then subsequently metamorphosed. Volkonskoite is a green-coloured, chrome-bearing smectite clay mineral. It is sourced from the Okhansk region of the Urals. Tuff is a volcanic ash deposit, in this case coloured purple by iron oxides.

Ruth suggests listening to Sibelius’s Karelian Suite whilst viewing the colours.

All pigments are bound in gum Arabic on W&N watercolour paper and read from left to right:

Tuff Purple
Siderite
Mumia Bauxite
Shungite
Sankirnaya Ochre
Volkonskoite

Mineral Pigment Processing: Health and Safety Tips

By Ruth Siddall, on 16 September 2020

As a geologist, I get asked lots of questions about the safety aspects of preparing mineral pigments and paints, so I thought I’d write down what I have learned during my career as a geologist and answer some of the questions I’m frequently asked. Are mineral and earth pigments safe? Well, the answer is yes and no. Most materials are safe to use if you take the correct precautions on collecting, processing, storing and using them. The more you learn about the materials, the more you understand the risks. The same goes for all artists’ materials, including glues, resins, jesmonite, white spirit and so on. For stuff you buy over the counter, material safety data sheets are readily available. Obviously, this is not the case for stuff you might collect in the great outdoors. Here are some tips, and my personal feelings, about the risks of working with rocks and minerals and how to mitigate them. This applies to people working in sculpture and pottery as well as pigment processing. If you’re grinding rocks and minerals for pigments occasionally and in small amounts, there’s very little risk. However, if this is something you’re doing everyday, you need to take some precautions to protect your health. All dusty materials can affect your respiratory system, but some materials have more damaging effects than others.

What I’m writing here applies to rocks, minerals and biominerals (shells, bone) that you might find in your environment and are regularly used to make pigments or for carving. These tips do not apply to toxic or chemical waste products (which should be avoided at all cost), plants or animal materials (including dyes and lake pigments), or processed products like metals, plastics, resins and glass. Many of you will already know this and take precautions when preparing mineral pigments. However a lot of people are find this activity for the first time. So here we go …

Learn about natural materials and their risks …
Try to learn what you can about what naturally occurring materials are made up of. You can google most things and check their chemical formula. Also look at hazard sheets for similar materials sold by paint manufacturers. Find out what is dangerous and what is not and collect accordingly. Wash your material when you get it home to remove any dirt or potentially hazardous biological material. If you are working with relatively small amounts of these materials every now and again, there is no major hazard associated with them.

It’s all about what you wear …
I’m a lab and field scientist by background and health and safety is drummed into you ALL THE TIME in these environments. There is a reason why you never see scientists in labs wearing, shorts, T-shirts and sandals. In labs, we wear lab coats, face-masks and goggles. We don’t wear this stuff just to protect our clothes or to stop stuff splashing our eyes, we wear it to protect our skin, eyes and internal organs from ingesting dangerous materials. If you’re going to prepare pigments, think like a scientist and dress appropriately. Cover your skin, eyes and mouth. If you are really worried, wear ear-defenders too. As a field geologist we had to wear goggles when we were hammering or crushing rocks. These are proper goggles with a seal round your face (like a snorkel mask but without a breakable glass front) so nothing can get in. A visor won’t stop dust getting into your eyes. This is all really obvious stuff. If you do this, your risk of ingesting or absorbing dangerous substances will be really, really low.

My friend Jim using a rock saw and wearing appropriate safety kit. This is a water saw so there’s no dust, which is why he doesn’t have a mask on. A constant spray of pressurised water washes dust down into the trough. This water has to be disposed of via a sediment trap (and not straight into the drains).

Tidy up and wash-up …
Clean up your work-space thoroughly when you have finished working. Use a vacuum cleaner to get rid of dust. Oh, and have a shower when you’re done! Wash your hair while you’re at it. Don’t eat or prepare food until you’re clean. Really straightforward stuff, but again it hugely reduces risk.

If you are doing this a lot, invest in decent processing kit …
If you are making pigments commercially, and therefore grinding stuff every day, you should probably invest in some proper kit, i.e. mechanical grinders such as disc mills or ball mills AND a proper dust extraction set up.
When I was a grad student, I earned a bit of extra pocket money by rock crushing (as well as crushing tonnes of my research project rocks). You need to crush rocks to a fine powder to study geochemistry and geochronology. I would spend days, weeks doing this. It is quite a slow process. We had a purpose built space with different machines which gradually reduced the grainsize of the rock, starting with a sledgehammer and ending with a disk mill. Also we had a huge set of extractor fans to remove all the dusts. These were like enormous vacuum cleaners which we could move and direct so they were right over the source of the dust and suck it all up. I’ve done a lot of this and I was well aware that the more you do, the more you’re at risk. I still use the lab for grinding if I need to make a lot of pigment. So if you just grind up a handful of ochre once a year, there’s little to worry about (but wear a mask), but if you’re grinding pigments and making paints regularly, you should take precautions and ideally do it in lab conditions where there is protective equipment. Dust is the enemy!

What scares me?
There are a few things that I would not normally grind by hand at home, because they produce specific hazards. Obviously radioactive minerals are a no go. This is not a huge issue with modern pigments but can be an issue when working with some 19th Century materials.

Silicosis is a horrible respiratory disease which comes from long exposure to silica dust. It cannot be cured and it is cumulative; the more silica dust you breathe in, the worse it gets. Silicosis is a killer among workers in granite quarries who have constant exposure, but potters are also at high risk. Breathing in the silica dust scars the lungs and leads to breathing difficulties. Generally, it is best to try and avoid breathing it in. The great majority of rocks on our planets are silicates (sandstones, granites, basalts, schists, slates etc), basically anything that’s not a limestone. I would not advise grinding silicates unless you have proper rock crushing and grinding facilities including extractor fans, as described above. I admit that I have crushed slates and shales by hand, but they’re at the softer end of this spectrum, and I’ve been masked up, etc. But I still regret it. Silicate rocks and minerals includes lapis lazuli and clay-rich rocks. Get it crushed in a proper lab with dust extractors. It scares me when I see people crushing basalt, sandstones, granite etc. Also most silicate minerals lose their colour when finely ground, so it’s a bit of a waste of time. The only silicate mineral worth grinding (in my opinion) is lazurite (the blue mineral in lapis lazuli), but again this should be done in the presence of an extractor fan.

Serpentinites are also silicates but in addition they contain asbestos, so just leave them well alone. Soft, attractive and colourful though these rocks are, I would never grind them, and I don’t even like sampling them at outcrop. The lung cancer caused by asbestos, mesothelioma, is not necessarily dose related. It can be caused by just one, unlucky breath.

A polished slab of serpentinite, a rock predominantly formed of the serpentine group minerals, which can be asbestiform. Serpentinites are very variable in appearance, varying in colour from black, to grey, green, bright red and yellow. They often have a distinctive ‘snake-skin’ like texture and feel soft and soapy to the touch.

What’s an ‘acceptable’ risk?
Some pigment minerals are known to be toxic because they contain heavy metals, copper, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, lead etc. Some of these are super-poisonous, but they are also very important as pigments both art historically and in the present day. As this is what I research, needs must. Heavy metals can build up in the body, so this is dose related – and can do a lot of harm. Some can kill you. You can ingest them through breathing in dust or getting it in your eyes and ears, and some you can absorb through your skin. This risk can be massively reduced by not grinding or working with these materials wearing a vest top! Cover up, mask up, wear goggles. I would never grind large amounts of these minerals. Even though I’m a pretty good mineralogist so I know what I’m looking at, one cannot be sure of precisely what is present in a mineral sample. The unknown unknowns are a problem, microminerals or inclusions of poisonous stuff, or similar looking phases that might be hidden with a mineral. The worst of these minerals are the arsenic and mercury sulphides; orpiment, realgar, pararealgar, conichalcite, cinnabar, metacinnabar etc. and synthetic pigment equivalents like vermillion. Many of the worse pigment poisoners, like Scheele’s Green, Hooker’s Green and some varieties of cobalt violets (i.e. cobalt arsenate) are now banned. These materials are very bad for you, large enough doses can kill. They are also dangerous because they begin to break down thermally and at low temperatures, i.e. not much above room temperature and start releasing straight arsenic. Also, if you have samples of these minerals, don’t have them on an open display shelf, keep them in a sealed bag or box. Keep them away from sunny windowsills! When preparing them as pigments, do so in small amounts, and make sure your skin, mouth and eyes are covered. It’s probably a good idea to wear disposable gloves too. Make sure you was hands and face afterwards, and certainly before eating.

Cadmium pigments and lead pigments are a big risk in the same way, but at least you buy these in powdered form, so there is not the grinding hazard.

Copper minerals, i.e. malachite, azurite, atacamite, chrysocolla, conichalcite (a copper arsenate, so a double whammy, and it looks just like malachite) and lead minerals (to be honest rarely collected as minerals but the main ones are crocoite, galena etc.) are also poisonous, but you would need a much bigger dose to kill you, but they can have lasting damaging effects. Again, the rule is to try to avoid making pigments from these minerals unless you’re in a lab environment, and if you are doing this in your studio, do so in small amounts, cover up and wash afterwards.

The good news is, that once incorporated into a binder, these pigments are much safer, but care needs taking, especially with the very thermally unstable arsenic sulphides.

Something to be aware of is flushing pigments and paints made from these minerals down the sink. Try and avoid doing this!

Above: Conichalcite, a calcium copper arsenate hydrate. Quite a poisonous mineral, as minerals go! This is the nearest natural equivalent to the copper arsenate pigments which were really popular in the late 19th Century.

What’s OK (assuming above precautions are taken)?
Limestones and other carbonate rocks (these don’t contain silica, so no silicosis risk)

Biominerals (shells, coral, cuttlefish bone, bone etc) are carbonates or phosphates and don’t present any major risk, although they can absorb heavy metals during the lifetime of the organism, so this is something to be aware of. Boiling these materials in water before processing, for at least 10 minutes, should kill off any biological hazards and reduce the smelliness!

Iron-ochres and earths – however many of these do also contain clays, which are silicates and they can contain other heavy metal compounds. The purer the iron ochre, the safer it is. You’ve already got a lot of iron in your body, so you need to absorb an awful lot more to make yourself poorly from it. Nevertheless, iron poisoning is a thing. Breathing in a few particles won’t do you much harm, but it’s always best to avoid it. Again, this is more of an issue if you’re processing ochres on an industrial scale but cover up to avoid ingestion of materials and you’ll be OK. However, as dust is the enemy, even if these are not going to poison you, you need to avoid the dust, they can cause respiratory problems.

NB: Not all ochres are iron-rich. Other metals (cobalt, nickel, aluminum) can also form ochreous deposits.

 

FAQs – I’m happy to add to these!

What about heavy minerals and pollution in the environment?
This is an issue. But again it’s about reducing the chances of your body absorbing this stuff. The are trace amounts of heavy minerals that are pollutants in shells, bones, cuttlefish bone etc., so treat them with care and cover up whilst you are processing them. Clays can hoover up pollution, so take care if you’re collecting clays from industrial or former industrial areas. If you wash them and they smell funny or you get that oily, iridescent film on the water, then to be honest, I would leave it at that and dump them. They can contain some really nasty stuff, like benzene (this is a problem with the London clay in some Victorian industrial areas in London). Brightly coloured mine waste products should be treated with care too. The orange ochre mineral ferrihydrite that you see in streams is usually OK but check what was being mined there as these deposits can also contain arsenic and other horrors. Anything else, personally I’d leave well alone. It is waste for a reason and also sorts of nasty chemicals were used to process it.

Are you saying that I really should be only processing pigments in a lab environment?
No, not at all. Making these things at home is good fun. You just need to follow the basic safety advice; wear a mask and ideally eye mask, wear long sleeves and clean-up yourself and your space afterwards.

I’m still anxious about the risks some of these materials pose and feel I don’t know enough about them. Should I use them?
The simple answer to this question is no. If you don’t feel comfortable using a certain material then just don’t.

I’m getting conflicting advice about the risks of working with a certain rock, mineral or shell. How do I find out what the truth is?
Again, if this is making you uncomfortable, simply don’t use that material. But remember, the hazard is caused by getting this stuff into your body. If you do everything you can to avoid that, then you will reduce the risk. Try to rely on scientific sources rather than social media and hearsay to get more information.

Should I just completely avoid using seriously toxic mineral pigments like orpiment and vermillion?
No, but you should learn about them first and understand what the risks are. There’s lots of safety info out there. These minerals/pigments need handling with care. As I keep saying, you just do everything you can to avoid this stuff getting into your body. I wear gloves for handling orpiment. However, if you have no need to use these pigments they can be easily avoided. You can buy safe modern paints which have similar colours and properties.

Is it safe to teach kids pigment processing techniques?
It’s not safe to use the toxic mineral pigments mentioned above (copper, arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury etc. based pigments), but processing ochres and chalks will be fine and good fun; no more risky than making mud pies. Levigating clays and ochres in water is pretty safe too. Make sure they’re supervised, old enough not to know not to eat it and make sure they’re wearing a mask if they’re working in dusty environments.

Many minerals have therapeutic properties, won’t this help protect me?
No, they don’t and no, it won’t. Sorry. In fact many minerals pose risks as described above and can be very harmful. Breathing in their dust or inserting them into your body can be really dangerous. Also the mineral trade to produce therapy crystals is really, really, really unethical and exploitative a lot of the time … but that’s another story.

A Colour A Day: Week 23

By Ruth Siddall, on 29 August 2020

A Colour A Day Week 23. 24th August – 30th August.

Jo Volley writes…

This week we celebrate Goethe’s 271st birthday, 28th August, with earth pigments from Cyprus collected and processed by Ruth Siddall who says of them …

Cyprus is an island long associated with the production of pigments. These are by-products of the copper mining that has been active since the Bronze Age when Cyprus was the main supplier of copper ingots in the eastern Mediterranean region. But it was not copper-based pigments that were in abundance, it was the iron and manganese-rich ochres and umbers which were typical of Cyprus as well as the celadonite-rich green earth deposits. The Cypriot umber is a true umber in the geological sense having formed at a mid-ocean ridge plate tectonic boundary. In fact this is the environment of deposition of all of Cyprus’s ores and pigments. They originally formed in deep ocean waters, superheated by volcanic activity and then this slab of oceanic rock, ores and all, was emplaced onto the Eurasian continent during the construction of the Alpine mountain chain. The ochres formed by the weathering of the ores both before and after this emplacement onto dry land. Such a geological environment is uncommon, and Cyprus is by far the biggest example of these processes on Earth. A unique island for pigment formation.’

All pigments are bound in gum Arabic on W&N watercolour paper and read;

Left hand column from top to bottom:
Yellow Ochre, Sia Mine, Cyprus
Jarosite Yellow Ochre, Sia Mine, Cyprus
Burnt Umber, Margi, Cyprus

Middle column:
Red Ochre, Sia Mine, Cyprus

Right hand column from top to bottom:
Raw Umber, Margi, Cyprus
Terra Verte, Cyprus
Brown Ochre, Sia Mine, Cyprus

A Colour A Day: Week 22

By Ruth Siddall, on 23 August 2020

A Colour A Day Week 22. 17th-23rd August

Jo Volley writes…In JL Carr’s novel A Month in the Country the protagonist Tom Birkin returning from the First World War is redeployed as a wall painting conservator. He spends the summer uncovering a large medieval wall painting in a country church and along with it rediscovers a sense of faith in the future. As the painting’s image is revealed and through the unknown artist’s use and choice of colours, Tom begins to appreciate and understand the man.

‘I was working up the 3 brothers (see Luke 16), blissfully heedless of the judgement to come…The second magnate’s cloak was a splendid garment – red outside and green lining. A very good red, the best in fact, no expense spared, sinoper haematite that is, not to be confused with what some fatheads call sinoper which, as often as not, is red earth, the stuff they used to bring in by the shipload from Pontus Euxinus (and don’t ask me where that was). That’s the red which darkens almost as soon as you turn your back on it: it survives and that’s all that can be said for it. In fact, on damp walls, it’s all that does survive. Well, back to this chap’s cloak. It was resin-based and that doesn’t ooze out, by the gallon; they found a scallop-shell with caked deposit amongst the rubble in the Gifford Chantry at Boyton.’

‘Mr Birkin…Mr Birkin…is it an oil painting or a water colour or what is it for goodness sake?’ ’It’s all sorts of things, Mrs Keach. Item – blew bysse at 4s 4d. the pound, item – one sack of verdigris at 12d. a pound, item – red ochre, 3 pounds a penny, item – 3 pecks of wheat flour…. I suppose you could lump it all as tempera. And let’s not forget the wall itself – down in the sinful south, plastered with chalk bound with parish offerings of skimmed milk; up here, slaked limestone putty damped just enough to stiffen. That’s about what it is. …Spaynishe white,  Baghdad indigo, Cornish malachite…

But for me, the exciting thing was more than this. Here I was, face to face with a nameless painter reaching from the dark to show me what he could do, saying to me as clear as my words, ‘If any part of me survives from time’s corruption, let it be this. For this was the sort of man I was.’

Each pigment is bound in gum Arabic on W&N watercolour paper and reads from left to right:

Malachite
Verdigris
Chalk
Haematite
Red ochre
Chalk
Indigo
Blue bice

A Colour A Day: Week 20

By Ruth Siddall, on 9 August 2020

A Colour A Day – Week 20. 3rd – 9th August

Jo Volley writes…
This week’s colours are more earths, gifted by Steven Patterson, Chief Executive Officer, Derivan, Australian artist materials manufacturer, from their Matisse Structure Origins Range. To accompany them please listen to Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde;

The earth breathes, in full rest and sleep.
All longing now becomes a dream.

Each colour is painted out in 3 layers on W&N watercolour paper and read from left to right:

1. Armenian Gugark Cherry
2. Morrocan Yellow Oxide
3. Armenian Lori Red Light
4. Armenian Tavush Trans Green
5. Armenian Lori Violet Light
6. Armenian Kotayk Ochre
7. Armenian Bole

A Colour A Day: Week 2

By Ruth Siddall, on 5 April 2020

A Colour A Day is a year-long project by Jo Volley, which began on the first World Pigment Day, 22 March 2020,  to celebrate one colour each day by recording a swatch. This is the post of colours created for Week 2; 30th March – 5th April.

This week’s contributions are group of colours made from natural sources that Jo has collected and prepared as pigments.

  1. Iron Gall Ink
  2. Hampstead Heath Ochre no.6
  3. Pomegranate Ink
  4. Hampstead Heath Ochre no.3
  5. Cork Black
  6. Prespes Red Ochre
  7. Bone Black