From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 10/03/01-03:08:41 AM Z
On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, lva wrote:
> I take those stones, gravel and pebbles and put them in a bag. Back at
> the studio I put them in a bucket, add a good amount of water and decant
> carefully 20 to 50 times depending on how fine I want the powder to be.
>
> After the decanting I filter the broth through a very fine tea sieve (to
> remove any organic particles). Then let the whole thing rest for a day.
> By then the pigment has settled. I throw away the water and let the
> thick pigment soup sit until it has dried.
>
> Then grind some of it for a short time in a mortar with a pestle. That
> grinding is not going to make the pigment particles smaller. Due to
> careful decanting they are already smaller than they could ever get in a
> mortar. But it turns the lumps into powder.
This isn't clear -- wouldn't the smaller particles float to the top, so
that they would be in the part decanted? Yet, I take the above to mean
that you are using the "soup" that's left *after* the decanting.
You also said yesterday that you can't mull the pigment smaller -- yet the
day before you mentioned watching a particular color get brighter as you
ground it smaller (was that capuut mortuum? )
I go into this because I'm still hoping to mull the (commercially bought)
pigment with less mess... you say you add a lot of water and mull it that
way. Is that just your "dug" pigment, or all?
> To make the burnt pigment even nicer, you can put it in a mortar, add
> some water, grind it for a while and decant a few times. In this way you
> get rid of the tiniest particles of clay that may have crept into that
> vein of ore-rich stones.
> So thanks to Katherine's crusade against pigment ignorance, I did my own
> little research and started looking more carefully at the tubes where it
> says in microscopically printed code what's inside that tube. Then I
> read that fantastic book by Michael Wilcox who seems to have personally
> tested thousands of watercolor paints. His comments are sometimes very
> funny, especially the ones about the "ST.Petersburg" brand.
I have a mixed reaction to the Wilcox book... there's a terrific amount of
information in it... but sometimes his opinion obscures the info. More
important, the book is 1990 (as I recall) and the companies change
pigments & mixes all the time. Also I found the absence of an index
maddening -- to look up a particular color by a particular company you
have to literally leaf through page by page and examine each sample, box
by box. Plus he misses the boat enough times to shake my confidence: For
instance, he approves Rowney something or other rose, I think a
Quinacridone (this from memory, so spare me if it's not), but fails to
notice that that color is so weak it takes 3 times as much to make a given
tone as the Daniel Smith Quinacridone, therefore makes a gum mix so thick
you can't spread or smooth it.
I've tried both the Linel and Senelier colors (Senelier attends College
Art Association conferences & can be persuaded to part with samples), I
didn't find either of them inspiring. In fact some of the Linel gouaches
were both fluorescent and fugitive. As I recall, also, NY Central carries
the Senelier. Discontinued the Linel because it didn't sell. (Ditto the
Rowney.)
My favorite watercolor now (& of other gum printers) is Daniel Smith. The
catalog and tubes both list all pigments, along with lightfastness, and
the catalog shows the colors brushed out. (More reliably than the Wilcox
color samples, which really are.... um, *reaching* for approximate.) Try
the Perylene Maroon for intense. (You may not get the DS catalog in
Sweden, but they probably have a website.) The tubes are about $10 for 15
ml, the cheapest of any major brand, and I've never yet had one that
doesn't print well.
> One of his comments really did it for me. He comments on a Burnt Sienna,
> I think it was Winsor&Newton's. He says he feels sorry for all those
> artists who think they're using a genuine burnt sienna while all they're
> getting is a dreadful mix of synthethic pigments. That's when I started
Just because a pigment is "synthetic" doesn't mean it's dreadful. You may
however mean simply that it's a *mix* not a pigment? If by synthetic you
mean manufactured rather than mined, then the thalos, quinacridone, etc.
(without which I couldn't print) are synthetic. Again from memory, but I
think modern ultramarine is manufactured. Etc.
In the 1940s, Winsor Newton was the only decent watercolor, at least in
the US, in fact only one or two other brands existed. During WW 2, one of
them for instance, was Talens... the colors were off, weird, fugitive.
Well, it was war. At the time the WN colors, even student grade, were
quite good, & the only brand we were (at Art Students League, not all THAT
long after Wm Mortensen) allowed to buy. So at that time the WN reputation
was deserved. Later less so. I wouldn't buy them now because they're
overpriced... but sometimes a MIX is just the color you want. For instance
"neutral tint" is a mix & in some makes excellent. I would suppose even
that your rocks are a mix... maybe animal, vegetable, & mineral,
ultimately ???
Judy
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