July 2012: Black and White

As I write this newsletter I am at the Sitka Art & Ecology Center on the Coast. I’ve been here teaching drawing, sketching and painting for about a week. It’s been a wonderful time—even with all the misty rain. But alas, I’m headed back to the Portland area tomorrow—a mixed bag of emotions. I miss my home, studio and dog, but oh boy, it’s so beautiful here.

Onto the subject at hand...This month I’m covering the pigments black and white. Of course they both have a wonderful deep history.  Let’s begin with black.

The versatility of black

Back in the mid and late 1800s, the Impressionists changed the world with their canvases dancing with brilliant colors. Black seemed to take a back seat.  Many of the Impressionists simply dropped the color from their palette.

There’s a story that John Singer Sargent and Claude Monet were out painting one day when Sargent  asked if he could use some of Monet’s black. Whereupon, Monet announced that he didn’t use black. "In nature all colors are made by mixing."

This idea of excluding black caught on and to this day there are people who refuse to use the color straight from the tube, instead opting to make their own black by mixing reds, greens and browns. See my article dated, January 2012 below on mixing chromatic blacks.

Interestingly, one Impressionist, Renoir, did hold out and used black. In fact, there’s another story that tells of a group of young artists announcing to Renoir that they had dumped all their tubes of black paint into the Seine River. He replied with surprise, “But black is a very important color, perhaps the most important."

As we can see in his painting, La Loge, he used black in the opera viewer’s  dress, while enhancing the white with dashes of blues, pinks and yellows.

The Impressionists were really saying that the traditional method of always putting brown or black in shadows was not acceptable for them. Instead they saw color in the shadow. I agree, but I disagree with eliminating the color from one’s palette because there is more to black than meets the eye.

Generally black is made from either mineral, plant or animal stuff. The first black was pulled from the fire by early artists—charcoal either created from wood or bones that were burned and charred.There are four popular blacks: Ivory, Lamp, Mars and Payne’s Gray.

Ivory or Bone black, which was a favorite of Rembrandt, is created by carbonizing bone. As far back as 4^th century BC, the color was referred to as Elephantium black because it came from elephant tusks, a practice that stopped in 1929. From the early days, the tusk chips were put in clay urns and fired until all that was left was black “dust.”  It’s very opaque and intense—a little goes a long way. With a brownish undertone, Ivory makes warm grays when added to white (to make a tint).

Lamp black comes from the soot collected by the burning of gas or oil—particularly in the past it came from gas lamps. This all-purpose black has a bluish influence and is transparent. When added to white (tint), it creates wonderful  cool grays.

Mars black is artificially made from iron oxide. It has three times the strength of all the others, dries quickly and is warm. I personally like Mars the most.

Payne’s Gray, although not a true black, is very cool in temperature and also goes a long way. In watercolor, especially where you don’t use white, this pigment is great for creating grayish tints. You can make it yourself with Mars black and Ultramarine blue. Try it, it’s fun!

On the lighter side

On the opposite side is white. As said above, white isn’t usually used in watercolor as the artist instead opts to leave the paper to represent the highlight. But in oils, acrylics, colored pencil and/or pastels white is used. Historically, White Lead was used from the earliest times, dating back to ancient China. However, it’s poisonous and is not used any longer.  Today, there are three popular whites used: Titanium, Zinc and Chinese.

Titanium white is made from titanium dioxide. The pigment has been in use since 1916 when it was used for industrial purposes. About five years later it found its way onto the artists’ palette. Titanium is bright, warm, densely opaque. It lies in between lead white and zinc white (see below).

Zinc white is made from zinc oxide, the same stuff we use for medicinal purposes. Created to replace the deadlier White Lead in the 18^th century, the paint is heavier than its predecessor, less pliant and can cause cracks in oil paintings. It is cool, clean white and somewhat opaque.

Chinese white was invented by Winsor & Newton. Here is the story from their website:

At the very beginning of their partnership, Winsor and Newton determined to improve artists’ pigments and zinc oxide was an enormous success, the first alternative to lead white. 

Winsor and Newton heated zinc oxide to very high temperatures in [their] ovens and produced what they called Chinese White; at last an alternative white with good opacity.... Chinese White was introduced in 1834 having been tested by Sir Michael Faraday, a pre-eminent scientist of his day.

Usually offered in watercolor and gouache kits, Chinese white is somewhat less opaque than Titanium and is very brilliant. I use it in ink work on occasion, especially to cover up a mistake (Liquid Paper works well too).

Next month I will explore how to make greens. Now that we are in the summer months, it would be nice to know what combinations of paints one can use to create the different tonal values of green. And remember, blue and yellow aren’t the only colors to make green. Yellow and black make a wonderful olive green. Learn more next month!

What's Up for Summer!

To pre-register or receive more information
on Glastonbury Studios classes, please contact me at:
jjgoodell@gmail.com or call me at 503.524.6981

2^nd Sundays Visual Journaling Class

Glastonbury Studios in Tigard
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Starts this Sunday, July 8^th

$20 drop in fee. $100 for entire six weeks (make up are available)

Here’s a chance to journal with words, collage, paint and found items. Just bring your spiral sketchbook and I’ll provide the rest!

FREE!

Travel Sketching Demo at Dick Blick, Beaverton

Friday, July 13th  2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Come join me while I demonstrate techniques to travel sketching at Dick Blick. I'll cover the materials you should bring to the basics to sketching with watercolor and ink! It's all free! What a deal. Phone number to Beaverton store: (503) 646-9347 

Summer Session Classes

Cost: $70 per class
(make-ups available)

Tuesday evenings

7-9 p.m.
Still life drawing
Where: Glastonbury Studios

Wednesday mornings
10 to 12 noon
Sketch’n on the Go™

Sketching Portland & Environs
(see http://sketchnonthego.blogspot.com/)

Thursday evenings 
7-9 p.m.
Intermediate Acrylics,
American Expressionism
Where: Glastonbury Studios

Summer Session PCC Workshops

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
See for registration and paymentwww.pcc.edu/community

Saturday, July 7

Basic Drawing

Saturday, July 21
Beginning Acrylic Painting

Saturday, August 4
Travel Sketching

Friday, August 17
Nature Sketching, Tigard Senior Center

Saturday, August 18
Pen and Ink

June 2012 Earth Pigments

A deadly twist
Usually,  when you read about earth pigments, you learn about how they date back thousands of years, first coming from clays and soils and used in ancient caves by early man. But I bet you’ve never heard about an earth pigment manufactured straight from the crypts of Egypt, giving somewhat of a macabre feel to color processing.

You have to go back to the 18^th and 19^th century. Sometimes called Mommia or Egyptian brown, a rich brown pigment, somewhere between burnt and raw umber, was used by many artists throughout Europe. There was only one drawback: the pigment was created by grinding up the mummified corpses of Egyptian humans and felines.

According to the Natural Pigments, “Grounded mummies made a pigment of an undefined organic composition due to the decomposition of the mummy and the various resins that covered them. It was used primarily in watercolor and oil painting techniques….A pigment of this color was also prepared from bitumen or asphaltum.”

This bizarre process dates back to the 12^th century when mummies were ground up into a powder for medicinal purposes (supposedly good for stomach problems and wounds).  In time, Mummy powder became so popular and expensive, Egyptian tombs were ransacked for their bodies as well as the other treasures they held. By the 16^th century mummies were more plentiful as new discoveries found more burial sites with thousands of mummies. It seems that although mummification was originally used by royalty,  it later came into practice for everyone, thus the increase in numbers. In fact, mummies were so plentiful in the 1500s, they were being shipped to Europe by the truckload (well, maybe the cart load back then).

So what happened to the pigment? The conventional answer is that once artists learned how the pigment was manufactured, they stopped buying it. Urban legend says that one artist was so disturbed by the contents, he swiftly dug a grave and buried his tube of paint. I have also read that there was a mysterious disease that was floating around in Europe and the pigment mixture was blamed for it.

Interestingly, there was an article in Time magazine back in 1964 that talked about the last batch being made by C. Roberson & Company, a British paint maker. One of its employees was quoted as saying, "We might have a few odd limbs lying around somewhere, but not enough to make any more paint." Do you think he was pulling our leg???

Earth Colors Today
Earth pigments usually have included those that are yellow, red, brown and darker violets (like Mars violet. As you can see on the earth color hue section of the CIELAB a*b* plane, the colors range from Hansa Yellow to Mars Violet. In my readings, I’ve also learned that some folks even consider Terra Verte (Green Earth) as part of the earth color family. But for now we’ll stick to this part of the CIELAB wheel.

Source: Handprint

Since we explored yellow last month, I want to jump right into those colors I deem earthier: the siennas and the umbers.

Siennas
Sienna comes either raw or burnt. From limonite clay this was one of the first pigments used by humans. It was most common near the city of Sienna in Italy until the 1940s. But can still be found in other areas such as Sardinia and Sicily as well as our Appalachian mountains. When raw sienna is roasted it is called burnt sienna, which is used more commonly than the raw form. Some artists even use the burnt version as red on their palette. I like them both. Siennas usually do not stain and lift well in watercolor.

Source: Unearthed Paints (umbers)

Umbers
The umbers are a deeper brown which contain iron and manganese oxides. First extracted in Umbria, raw umber is also roasted to create the burnt umber color which leans toward red. Today the best comes from the island of Cypress. In the past, these pigments were mixed with blood, urine, animal fat, saliva or bone marrow to form a paste. Umbers can have a greenish look to them, can stain in watercolor and are great for doing underpaintings in oils and acrylic. I also use my umbers in place of black sometimes.

Ochres
The orchres come in warm reds to earthy yellows. Yellow ochre is a natural mineral consisting of silica and clay with its color coming from the mineral form of red oxide. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as red ochre (when heated) and even more rare, purple and brown ochre

 Source:  Unearthed Paints (ochres)

Ochre is one of the oldies but goodies in the painting world, dating back to prehistoric caves with rock art and even pottery. Synthetic ochre or Mars yellow have been in use since the 1920s. The pigment slightly stains in watercolor and can be lifted fairly well.

A couple of browns
Van Dyke Brown was highly popular with the Flemish masters (Rubens, Rembrandt and Van Dyke (thus the name). Made with humus, peat and iron, the pigment was highly fugitive and caused the paint crack over time. Today the pigment is made synthetically with shades ranging from pale brown to black. It can still be fugitive and is somewhat transparent. Some artists use it in place of umber.

Back in the Roman days, Sepia was made from the ink naturally residing in the sacs of cuttlefish in Adriatic Sea. Used for ink by the Romans, the pigment later found its way onto the watercolorist palette. Today it is synthetically produced using black, brown and red-oxide pigments.


Here are my photos from my "color" book, which covers all the earth colors I have in my studio. Noticed, I don't have a whole lot in acrylics:

Next month I’ll cover black and white. There are differences!