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A Colour A Day: Week 25

By Ruth Siddall, on 13 September 2020

A Colour A Day: Week 25. 7th-13th September

Jo Volley writes…

A method for making shell gold

Grind either skewings or leaf gold with a small amount of clear honey into a paste using a muller and slab. Work the muller slowly in a figure of eight until you have the mixture spread out thinly on the slab, gather up and begin grinding again. Continue this process for approx. 15 minutes or until you have broken down the gold into fine particles. Place the mixture into a glass and fill with hot water to flush out the honey.

When the gold has settled to the bottom of the glass decant the water.
Repeat approx. 5 or 6 times until all the honey is removed. De-ionised or distilled water is recommended for the last 2 stages. Allow the gold pigment to dry. Bind with gum Arabic and store the gold paint in a shell.

All pigments are bound in gum Arabic on W&N watercolour paper.

First column left to right: Four gold pigments gifted by the artist, Lisa Milroy, collected on her travels in China.

Second column top to bottom:
Schmincke pale gold
Jo Volley’s shell gold
Schmincke rich pale gold

A Colour A Day: Week 24

By Ruth Siddall, on 6 September 2020

A Colour A Day: Week 24. 31st August – 6th September

Jo Volley writes…

This week we pay homage to the maillot jaune of the Tour de France with seven historic yellow pigments and celebrate Adam Yates, English cyclist, wearing it for the first time. The maillot jaune was adopted in 1919 by Henri Desgrange, director of the tour, to distinguish the leader of the race more easily within the peloton. Desgrange was also editor of the sports paper L’Auto which funded the tour and printed on yellow paper. To quote Jens Voigt, who wore the maillot jaune for a day during the 2001 tour, ‘Yellow is a beautiful colour, no?
All pigments are bound in gum Arabic on W&N watercolour paper and read from left to right:

Gamboge

Lead tin yellow

Orpiment

Alizarin yellow

Naples yellow

Indian yellow

Aureolin

In memory of Tommy Simpson, the first British cyclist to wear the yellow jersey.
30 November 1937, Haswell – 30 July 1967, Mount Ventoux.

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 21

By Ruth Siddall, on 16 August 2020

A Colour A Day Week 21. 10th-16th August

Jo Volley writes….

Extracts from Matisse on Art Jack D Flam 1973. On the occasion of an exhibition at the Gallery Maeght, December 1949 the title of which was Black is a Colour. Henri Matisse’s remarks were recorded by M. Maeght.

Before, when I didn’t know what to put down, I put down black. Black is a force: I depend on black to simplify the construction. Now I have given up all blacks*The use of black as a colour in the same way as the other colours – yellow, blue or red – is not a new thing. The Orientals made use of black as a colour, notably the Japanese in their prints. Closer to us, I recall a painting by Manet in which the velvet jacket of a young man with a straw hat is painted in a blunt and lucid black. In the portrait of Zacharie Astruc by Manet, a new velvet jacket is also expressed by a blunt luminous black. Doesn’t my painting of the Marocains use a grand black which is as luminous as the other colours in the painting? Like all evolution, that of black in painting has been made in jumps. But since the Impressionists it seems to have made continuous progress, taking a more and more important part in colour orchestration, comparable to that of the double-bass as a solo instrument. 

*Matisse does not mean he has given up the use of black, but that he no longer used it merely for linear construction as in his earlier works. Actually, at this time Matisse was making a use of black as a colour instead of an element of linear construction.

From left to right

  1. Jet – W&N Designers gouache
  2. Perylene – W&N Designers gouache
  3. Lamp – W&N Designers gouache
  4. Blue Black – W&N Calligraphy ink
  5. Mars – W&N Designers gouache
  6. Ivory – W&N Designers gouache
  7. Noir Intense – Lefranc Bourgeois Linel gouache

A Colour A Day: Week 19

By Ruth Siddall, on 2 August 2020

A Colour A Day – Week 19.  27th July-2nd August

Jo Volley writes…..

This week we celebrate the last seven FA Cup finals using the predominant colour worn by the winning team on the day. The FA Cup is the world’s oldest football competition, the first games played in the autumn of 1871, the same year as the Slade School was established. Arsenal have won the cup a record 14 times. 🏆

Each colour can be found in the Liquitex Soft Body Acrylic range and is on W&N watercolour paper.

 

A Colour A Day: Week 17

By Ruth Siddall, on 19 July 2020

A Colour A Day.  Week 17: 13-19 July

Jo Volley writes…

Over the last week I have had the privilege to work with 7 colours produced and sent to me by Ruth Siddall.  To receive these little packets of pigments through the post and work them into paint has been a pure delight.    

Ruth says of them. “These colours are all based on lake pigments made from American plants and an insect, the cochineal beetle. Three are wood dyes (logwood, brazilwood and osage orange), Aztec marigold was made from dried flowers, the avocado lake was made from a dye extracted from the stones of the fruit. Annatto (or achiote, achiotl) is a spice made from seeds. The latter was used as a ink in historical Mexican painting, and also as food colouring and a cosmetic.”    

All are bound in gum arabic on W&N watercolour paper and read from left to right.

Osage Orange, Maclura pomifera
Annatto, Bixa orellana
Cochineal, Dactylopius coccus
Logwood, Haematoxylum campechianum
Brazilwood, Caesalpina echinata
Aztec Marigold, Tagetes erecta
Avocado, Persea americana

A Colour A Day: Week 16

By Ruth Siddall, on 12 July 2020

A Colour A Day Week 16: 6th -12th July

Jo Volley writes…

This week’s A Colour A Day is inspired by Robert Rauschenberg’s White Painting (seven panel), 1952.

Of the series, his friend the composer, John Cage wrote:

To Whom / No subject / No image / No taste / No object / No beauty / No message / No talent /
No technique (no why) / No idea / No intention / No art / No object / No feeling / No black / No
white (no and) / After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing in
these paintings that could not be changed, that they can be seen in any light and are not
destroyed by the action of shadows. / Hallelujah! the blind can see again; the water’s fine.

Read from left to right are 7 white pigments bound in gum arabic on W&N watercolour paper.

  1. Lead
  2. Zirkonium silicate
  3. Egg Shell
  4. Zinc
  5. White Earth
  6. Fluorescent white
  7. Titanium

A Colour A Day: Week 13

By Ruth Siddall, on 21 June 2020

A Colour A Day Week 13; 15th – 21st June
Jo Volley writes….
This week’s feature of 7 greys also  includes the poem Penumbra  by artist and poet, Sharon Morris,  from her collection False Spring, Enitharmon Press, 2007.  Sharon is a Professor at the Slade School of Fine Art.
 

Penumbra

Your shadow has fallen on me
like the fig tree
in its profusion

and I am left
chasing your image
as the sun drops

into occlusion, you
running with that cusp of light
against disappearance,

my tears
wanting to make your face haptic
from its shroud.

 

Colours read from left to right and are painted out onto W&N watercolour paper:

 
  1. Galena
  2. Bone grey (JV/12)
  3. Graphite
  4. Neutral grey
  5. Payne’s grey
  6. Ash grey (JV/20)
  7. Melser Grau
 

A Colour A Day: Week 10

By Ruth Siddall, on 31 May 2020

A Colour A Day Week 10; 25th-31st May
Jo Volley writes …
This week’s colours are produced by Ruth Siddall and dedicated to the Land Art pioneer Agnes Denes on her  89th birthday on Sunday 31st May. 
 
These colours represent my first experiments in lake pigments; dyes made insoluble by the addition of a mordant, in this case alum with the further addition of either potassium or sodium carbonate in solution. The initial dye baths were made from raw materials from my kitchen (waste onion skins and dried hibiscus and marigold flowers used in tisanes), plant material collected from local areas of parkland (nettles, dandelion and bark from birch logs) and finally some madder roots which were sent to me as a present by Stephanie Nebbia, courtesy of the Winsor & Newton laboratories. All were made in my kitchen, with adapted equipment and materials during the initial few weeks of lockdown in March and April 2020.’ Ruth Siddall   
 
 
1. Birch Bark (alkaline)
2. Dandelion Lake
3. Nettle Green(copper modifier)
4. Rose Madder
5. Hibiscus Lake
6. Marigold Lake
7. Onion Skin Lake

A Colour A Day: Week 7

By Ruth Siddall, on 10 May 2020

A COLOUR A DAY – Week ;  4th – 10th  May

Jo Volley writes……

This week’s colours are a homage to our key workers and are from Winsor & Newton’s Professional watercolour range.

The rainbow mirrors human aims and actions. Think,  and more clearly wilt though grasp it, seeing Life is but light in many-hued reflection; Goethe Reflection,Thinking, Mirrors

  1. Cadmium Red
  2. Cadmium Orange
  3. Cadmium Yellow
  4. Cobalt Turquoise
  5. Winsor Blue
  6. Indigo
  7. Dioxazine Violet