The visual musings of someone who can’t stop thinking about the differences between natural ultramarine and synthetic ultramarine particle sizes before going to bed at night…
Current pigment bias: carbon black (AKA just burnt things, if you REALLY think about it…)
Lightfastness Testing
Chromatography
Sampling and Pigment ID
*Project on hold due to COVID-19
Color Bibliography
Ongoing list of my favorite sources on color, artists’ materials, and artist techniques!
Artists’ Materials, Techniques, and Safety
Standards under the American Standards of Testing Materials (ASTM) D01.57 Artists’ Materials Subcommittee *Next time you buy a tube of paint, check the product label for their ASTM standard compliances and lightfastness rating!
Michael McCann, Artist Beware: the Hazards in Working with All Art and Craft Materials and the Precautions Every Artist and Craftsperson Should Take (Guilford: the Lyons Press, 2005).
Monona Rossol, The Artists’ Complete Health and Safety Guide (New York: Allworth Press, 2001).
Ralph Mayer, The Artists’ Handbook of Materials and Techniques (New York: the Penguin Group, 1991).
Cennino d’Andrea Cennini (translated by Daniel V. Thompson, Jr.), The Craftsman’s Handbook “Il Libro dell’Arte” (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1954).
Fun Sources!
Michael Douma, “Pigments through the Ages,” Pigments through the Ages, WebExhibits, 2008, http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments.
Victoria Finlay, Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2014).
“British Artists’ Suppliers, 1650-1950,” National Portrait Gallery, London.
Primary Sources
Art Materials Research and Study Center, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The Forbes Pigment Collection, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Roberson Archive, Hamilton Kerr Institute, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
The Paper Sample Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Scholarly Sources
Artists’ Pigments, Vol. 1-4, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. *volumes 1-3 are available online
Conservation & Art Materials Encyclopedia Online (CAMEO) developed by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Laura Kalba, Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology, and Art (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018).
Kristi Dahm and Martha Tedeschi, Watercolors by Winslow Homer: the Color of Light (Chicago: the Art Institute of Chicago, 2008).
Anne Bermingham, Learning to Draw: Studies in the Cultural History of a Polite and Useful Art (New Haven: Paul Mellon Centre, 2000).
Marjorie B. Cohn, Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor (Cambridge: The Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Fogg Art Museum, 1977).
Miles Ogborn, Indian Ink: Script and Print in the Making of the English East India Company. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
John Winter, East Asian Paintings: Materials, Structures and Deterioration Mechanisms (London: Archetype Publications Ltd., 2008).