Page 6 - Artist Materials Advisor

Cadmium sulfide compounds form a significant group of yellow to red pigments. The discovery of cadmium began with the medicinal use of another element, zinc. The very property that led to the condemnation of zinc white, which ultimately brought about the discovery of cadmium, is the yellow color, now most frequently used in paint, ceramics, glass, and plastics.

Malachite, a mineral of copper, is one of the most beautiful minerals known. In the natural state, this relatively soft mineral usually shows various tints of green, varying from dark, rich green to bright Kelly green. Since the earliest civilizations, it has been carved into art forms, semiprecious jewelry, or ground into a fine powder for use as an artist’s pigment.

Azurite is composed of mineral basic carbonate of copper, found in many parts of the world in the upper oxidized portions of copper ore deposits. Azurite varies in masstone color from deep blue to pale blue with a greenish undertone depending on such factors as the purity of the mineral and the grade (particle size) of the pigment. Azurite was the most important blue pigment in European painting throughout the middle ages and Renaissance.

One way Venetian artists developed color in their paintings was to apply multiple thin, translucent layers that blend color in luminous, vibrant ways. Lomazzo described it in his treatise as painting “transparently.” This method of color mixing, known today as glazing, relies on being able to paint translucently, smoothly, and thinly. Glazes rely on achieving transparency which is antithetical to the opacity or hiding power of pigments. Venetian artists’ innovative use of materials aloe them to create remarkable glazes that are more complex than previously supposed by art historians.

This guide examines oil painting mediums made by Natural Pigments. These paint mediums are designed to alter the consistency of oil paint in novel ways, different from the varnishes that were in common use since the nineteenth century and alkyd mediums today. Painting mediums change the handling properties of paint, such as flow out and leveling; increase or decrease tackiness and drag; hasten or retard drying time, increase or decrease gloss; increase transparency, and other physical properties of oil paint.

White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). White reflects all the colors of the visible light spectrum to the eyes. But in a technical sense, white is not a color like black; it is a shade. Black and white augment colors. White is not simply white. Each different white oil paint has a hue bias, often called ‘temperature’ by artists. Each white oil paint also has other properties, such as hiding power or opacity and tinting strength and how it flows or behaves under the brush or palette knife, known as rheology. This guide to white oil paint for artists can help you select the right white for your painting.

Orpiment is a rich lemon or canary yellow with fair covering power and good chemical stability as a pigment. It is designated as brilliant yellow in Munsell notation 4.4Y 8.7/8.9. It is an arsenic sulfide mineral that occurs naturally in small deposits as a product of hydrothermal veins, hot spring deposits, and volcanic sublimation, although nowadays, it can be easily obtained artificially. The arsenic content makes it toxic, although it was also used in medicine, cosmetics, and as a biocide in ancient times.

Cinnabar has been mined and used as a precious resource by many cultures around the globe since at least the tenth millennium B.C. Cinnabar is also known as “vermilion.” The two terms are used interchangeably by both ancient authors and modern scholars because chemically, the two substances are the same, which is red mercuric sulfide (HgS). But “cinnabar” refers to the mineral, while “vermilion” is the synthetic pigment. Until the discovery of cadmium red in the early twentieth century, vermilion was the most widely used red pigment around the globe and the most vibrant red.

Lead white is the most important white pigment used in painting throughout history. It was known to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans and was commonly used in the preparation of ointments and plasters, as well as cosmetics. It was first identified in the literature as a pigment by Pliny, who mentions it, among other colors, as used by the ancients to paint ships.

One of the topics taught at the Painting Best Practices workshops is the optics of paint films. For example, we discuss and demonstrate how light interacts with paint films to create glossy or matte surfaces. Gloss is an observed phenomenon when light is reflected from a surface and thus, to a degree, is a relative effect. When light is reflected in a coherent manner, it creates a specular reflection, which we observe as “gloss”. If the light is scattered it causes diffuse reflection that we observe as “matte”.