Earth paints include mineral/clay based pigments derived from artisanal mining operations, and synthetic derivatives produced from iron/ore oxide slag. These represent the oldest pigments known to art, at least, the ones that survived the longest since there are cave and rock paintings using earth pigments going back tens of thousands of years. Yellow ochre, which can be seen throughout this painting consists of a small proportion of hydrated iron oxide along with various silicates and other minerals, but its the hydrated iron oxide that gives it the distinctive yellow colour. With heating the hydration is removed and the colour becomes orange, red, brown, and even black. If more iron oxide and manganese is present, then the colour is darker and tends to be greenish, chocolate brown, chestnut brown, dark oranges, and even a dark purplish red. You may notice green, that is called green earth (PG23) made of a phosphate based mineral from Nicosia Italy or Antica (USA?). A lot of these paints have cool names, like pozzuoli red earth, mars orange, or lemon yellow ochre.
The painting was done on the back of an old painting that I cut down to poster size so that it fits in the frame we have on the wall. It is a highly absorbent paper that further reduced the chroma (colour saturation) of the paints. The photo is okay, I took it outside with full sun, but you can imagine the colours are a bit brighter and sharper in real life. It was the best I could do with one hand on the painting, one on the camera, and a healthy bit of wind outside blowing the paper around. If you search you will see my initialing (PJD 21) and the painting title hidden amongst the patterns.
Earth Embrace, 24 x 36" 90lb, watercolour, April 2021
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