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Science OfPigment

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All paint is made from an essential ingredi-ent known as pigment. These tiny particlesare ground coloured material were first ex-tracted from earth or clay. Even though wecontinue to use age old processes to preparepigments and convert them into paint,

modern pigments are synthesized in labora-tories.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

INTRO

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The following properties are taken into consid-eration when talking about the quality of bothsynthetic and natural pigments:

Lightfastness: the rate at which a pigmentfades when exposed to light.

Heat stability:how pigments react when ex-posed to heat.Toxicity:the degree to which it can damage aliving or non-living thing.

Tinting strenght: how much pigment is re-quired to produce a particular shade.Opacity or transparency:whether one can

easily see the under layers of paintonce the top layer is dry.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

INTRO



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The source of blue pigment used to makeultramarine is the semi-preciousstone- lapis lazuli. Natural ultramarine isthe most difficult to produce because thehard lapis lazuli must be ground into a finepowder in order to make paint. The earliest

noted source of the colour were in Afghani-stan.

Bluewas used very sparingly in art be-

cause of how difficult this colour was toproduce. Artists would go as far as to onlypaint the top layer of blue with ultramarine

to cut down costs of painting.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

BLUE



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Azuriteis a soft, blue mineral of copperthat has many uses including the production

of blue pigment. The process to produce thecolour azure is similar to making its moreexpensive cousin.

However, since it is a mineral of copper, thepigments turn slightly green when added tooil and green-gray when added to egg yolk

(also used as a base in natural paints).

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

BLUE



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Another shade of blue that has an extensivehistory is Indigo. The colour Indigo isnamed after India, the earliest known pro-duction center of this pigment. The rela-tively cheaper means of production than ul-tramarine made the colour an important

trade commodity.

It was exported west as far as Greece andRome in the 7th century BC as a luxuryitem. Indigo is produced by fermenting theleaves of the Indigofera tinctoria plant andmixing it with dye to form a blue-coloured

powder.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

BLUE



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Cerulian bluewas discovered in 1805by a man named Andreas Hpfner. It is

made from cobalt and is prized because ofits pure colour. It is particularly prized inthe art world because it is opaque, it doesnot fade easily, and it does not emit any

hues of green (unlike other blue pigments).

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

BLUE



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Vermilionis an opaque orange-red pig-ment that occurs in the mineral cinnabar.

It is one of the oldest used colours in theworld as cinnabar is a common mineralfound around the world.

The mineral is ground into a fine powderand heated with mercury and sulfur beforeit is ready to be mixed with a paint-base.However it is also used without these chemi-cals like in India where married women useSindoor, a red streak of vermilion in theparting of their hair.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

RED



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Carmine, also known as crimson lakeor cochineal red is a bright red colour de-

rived from the aluminium salt of carminicacid. This might sound complicated but thisacid is found naturally in the cochinealinsect.

The insects are dried and boiled in water torelease the pigment. The water is themtreated with a chemical to make this liquidinto a powdered pigment.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

RED



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Madder lakesounds like the name ofa body of water in a fairytale but in fact

is the name of a pigment that has been usedfor centuries. This natural pigment is ex-tracted from the roots of plants of the'madder' family.

The outer brown layer of the root gives acommon variety of the dye while the inneryellow layer turns bright red when fer-mented.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

RED



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Malachiteis used in the production ofgreen pigment much in the same way as Ul-

tramarine. This copper carbonate mineraloccurs naturally in the Ural mountains ofRussia, many parts of Africa, France, Italyand the United states.

Paris greenis an inorganic compoundof copper. This poisonous substance is

named Paris green because it was used tokill the rats in Parisian sewers. The com-pound can be ground into a fine powder toproduce a lighter, vivid green or lefta little coarser for a darker shade.It is used even today in paintproduction despite its high

toxicity.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

GREEN



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A highly expensive green pigment isCobalt green, made from the elementfrom which it gets its name. The green ex-tracted from cobalt fades very easily whenexposed to light. The combination of highcost and because it fades easily is the cause

for its disuse. However scientists found thatcobalt has certain magnetic properties thathas increased the efficiency of computer

storage devices.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

GREEN



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The colour India Yellow used to beproduced by collecting cow urine of cattle

that had only been fed mango leaves. Theurine was collected in pots and heated overa fire. The concentrate was filtered and theremaining sediment was made into balls,

then dried and then made into yellow paintin Europe. It was a preferred shade of yellowbecause of its florescent hue.

Naples yellow, also known as anti-mony yellow, is one of the oldest syntheticpigments around. The old masters of Europe

used this pigment extensively but isnot used anymore becauseit is very toxic.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

YELLOW



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The colour gets its name from the naturaldeposits of lead antimoniate which was ex-tracted from Mt. Vesuvius just outside of

Naples.

Hansa yellowis a synthetic pigment

used in inks, and oil and acrylic paint. Itwas first made in Germany just before WWIand has replaced its predecessors such asCadmium yellow, Chrome yellow,

orpiment, and gamboge becauseit is not toxic.

Image references:Indian pigmants

source: www.wikipedia.org. This file is licensed under the creative commons attribution 2.0 generic.

SCIENCE OF

PIGMENT

YELLOW


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Science of Pigment – Mocomi.com