Pigments, Part One...
I hang out with people who enjoy studying history for fun. Some of these people go to extreme length to learn how things were made and recreate those things as they were most likely made in certain times and places. This group of people is notorious for two things, praising each other publicly for their hard work and finding new ways to share what they've learned and made. The best example of these is how some of them will make incredible works of fine art and then give them to other people to be given as physical tokens of recognition for work and accomplishment.
This is great because it gives artists a purpose to work for. When you want to make something but have no goal that can be frustrating. Having some established guidelines and goals is a great environment. Also, having a home for your work to go to and knowing that it will be appreciated is brilliant. This way we don't end up with pieces sitting around the house taking up space.
So, there is this whole culture of people who work hard to make beautiful art that will be publicly noticed and will go to a home where it will be appreciated. One of my friends thought I'd be good at making these pieces and got me started on learning the basics. Soon I was looking at historical examples and setting up layouts and working on basic pieces to learn the steps. But where other people aim for the fanciest pages of complicated miniature portraits and sparkly gold work, I kept looking back at Lascaux and wishing that I could make something that is just that shade of red.
Fortunately I stumbled into a class where someone was teaching how to make pigments. I learned that some pigments are dirt. I have never looked back. Sure, there are pigments that are a little more complicated. Pigments made from plant dyes and complicated chemical processes. Those are really fun, too. They don't get me nearly as excited as seeing a bit of red or yellow ochre in the wild and knowing that I have the capacity to make art with it the same way that my ancestors have done.
There are a hundred people out there who want to teach the advanced techniques of art so they can show off their own skill or sell you expensive equipment. I believe that if you can learn the most basic science of making pigment from dirt, you'll understand how to do far more advanced things whenever you want later on.
For our purposes we can define a pigment as a group of similarly colored non-organic particles of a consistent size. Starting with average dirt we need to do two things that one does not usually do with dirt: wash it and organize it. To do both of these we need dirt, water, a container, time, and attention.
We can find pretty dirt anywhere, but places where the earth has been cut away by humans or by water often reveal pockets of pretty red, yellow, or brown dirt. We can collect it however we like and bring it home where we have a workspace that we don't mind getting dirty.
Pick the obviously organic bits like leaves, bugs, or twigs out of the dirt along with any large chunks or rocks. Put some dirt into an empty clear bottle and add much more water than dirt. Swirl it around and pour off the water with any silt or floaty bits. Repeat this until the water pours off clear.
Add more water to the dirt in the bottle and shake it up really well. Set it down and watch how the dirt settles through the water. Big particles settle out first, then the middle size, then the small, and then the tiniest pieces will slowly slowly settle down on top. By pouring out at different stages of this process we can isolate the particles of the most useful size for painting.
We do not want the smallest particles as they will not show the color well. They will appear pale or white once spread out in a layer. We do not want the largest particles as they will look chunky on a surface. By shaking up the dirt and water we can pour off whatever particles are still floating after the desirable sizes have settled. Then we can shake again and pour off the desirable sizes into another container before they have settled and leave the larger pieces behind.
If we will spend time watching the particles of dirt settle and if we experiment to learn what particle sizes work best for our needs, we develop a sense of what we want for any given kind of dirt or painting project.
Dirt, water, time, and attention.
If we take the time to experiment with these things then when we decide to get a nice piece of lapis and spend the energy to grind it up, we'll already know how fine to grind it and not end up with many calories spent and pigment too fine to show any blue.
If you go ahead and paint this pigment on a piece of paper or board it will flake off when dry. Next time we'll talk about binders which are the other half of what makes paint paint. Until then start looking at dirt.
Look at the colors in the dirt. Look at the sizes of the particles of the dirt. Look at how water and dirt work together to sort the particles by size. Feel the texture of dirt and watch how it smears on your skin when you squish it between your fingers.
This is material science and practicing it in the most simple ways can teach us things about art that we won't learn from a thousand books or a hundred teachers.