Protoni's work diary - Pigments

Pigments...

If you see a person standing and staring in front of pigments shelf with eyes twinkle in Bauhaus (or some other store that is selling pigmentes) that will probably be my friend. Inside of her head there shall be turn on some short of heart shaped lamp  when she will let looked and talking about pigments. Well, everyone has their cause of  joys. I do sure like more liver casserole. 

When talking about pigments they can be categorized with different variotian like according to colors. But we would like to use in this writing such a rough categorization from where or which raw stock those pigments have been gained from.

My friend doesn't make pigments from these stones even if you could got it from green malachite stone. Malachite is also one of subjects in faux painting.

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Lets start with pigments that come from soil material and which we could call in here an earth pigments. The best example from this group would be red ochre and yellow ochre which are found in Finland's soil also. Many different kind of brown pigments, like vandyke brown and burnt umber, do belong in this category, likewise from green colour a green earth. We could mention one pigment in this category that would be a calcite that can be used also as a binding agent in paint. Eart pigments mix well with water. 

Shall we move then to the stone pigments. One could almost guessed that this pigments do get from different stones.
And yes this pigments group name do indeed reveal in from which spesific stone type they are get from, but like almost in everything in here there are also excepptions like blue ultramarine which original raw material, before substitutive inventing synthetic pigments, was lapis lazuli. Then there more clear pigments to perceive the raw material like from red pigments a vermillion or from green pigments a malachite. Pigments from stone don't dissolve to water but in ethanol.

And after this should we call our next pigment group by heavy metal based pigments. From this group many can be synthetic made pigments and like in stone pigments these names can reveal what heavy metal they are based on. From this group lets mention chromium based chrome yellow, which was favoured with Vincent van Gogh, and  viridian (green). From clear lead based pigments we could mention lead white, which might be familiar as an old window frame paint, and red lead pigment that has kind of very bright orange red tint/tone.

From the plant base pigments we could mention a red madder lake and blue indigo. What do you think, would black pigment named lampblack belong in this group because the most simply way to receive is from wood ashes?  Then there are some grey area pigments group like indian yellow that in originally is made from urine of the cow which has fed with mango leaves. Is that an animal or plant base pigment then? Or what about the black pigment named bone black that is got from, well, carbonizing death animal bones?  There are pigments that have really exotic names like red plant base dragon's blood pigment. 

Should one use ready-made paint from tube or should one mix own paint from pigments and adhesive or maybe compination of these two option? Well, there is something for artist to think of.

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Some pigments are gained from insects and molluscs. From this I could mention Tyrian purple pigment that is gained from dog whelk and a red carmine cochinel pigment that is gained from cochineal insects.

Then there is a large group of other different kind of synthetic pigments which can belong to oxide- based pigments, like from white pigments a zinc- and titanium dioxide white, or a  sulfide based pigments, like cadmium yellow.

Its good to remember that some pigments might have had a differtent name in different eras or places. For example green pigment in that is called in Europe Schweinfurt green (what a horrible word monster for a finnish talking dog) and is known in America emerald green has also (at least in Finland) known as an imperial or kaiser green. Likewise cobalt blue is also known in Finland as a porcelain blue.

One could glaim that the victorious developping of synthetic pigment started in 19th century, when many new pigments were produced from coal tar and those goal tar based pigments had a really bright tones and therefore they were really desirables in those times. But they were also quite poisonous. Many pigments were included arsenic, like already mentioned Schweinfurt green, and therefore  some of the 19th century manufactured green wallpaper carries unoffical nick name as a arsenic wallpaper but the green colour was not the only pigments to include a heavy dose on arsenic. For example some of the 19th red coloured wall paper might also include arsenic.

Now days many poisonous pigments do have unpoisonous synthetic pigment alternative. Altough pigment's poisonous doesn't concern only for a 19th century coal tar based pigments. For example a true vermillion pigment from stone does include mercury. It is useful to restorer to know pigments history and their features so that he or she doesn't find herself/himself from the hospital's toxicology department. Maybe on good caution mnemonic for restorer when working with the old propertoes and object is that the more brighter colour is the more cautious you should be. A bit similar like in nature.


This was my  prattles at this time.

See you next time and have a nice Midsummer Day.

-Protoni&Laura

Even bright colour pigments do have pigments that are not heavy poisonous and all photo's bright pigments are nonpoisonous synthetic pigments. Eart pigments are one group that doesn't actually contain heavy poisonous pigments but I still wouldn't recommend to eat them.