Helen White RMS
Take a peep into Helens much loved pigment cupboard...an Aladdins cave of colourful wonders!
As well as powdered pigments (the raw materials for making paint), there are ingredients for various artistic 'recipes', including Gum Arabic (for binding pigments to make watercolour paint), Rabbit Skin Glue (for making the ground for egg tempera painting) and Gum Ammoniac, Seccotine Glue and Slaked Plaster (for making mordants for the application of gold leaf).
The use of shells as palettes is traditional and is seen in illustrations in medieval manuscripts (and they are free!)
Shell Gold is real gold paint which is made by grinding gold leaf to a fine powder, and uses either Gum Arabic or Gelatine as a binder. It is so called because traditionally it was made and sold in mussel shells.
Shell Gold is real gold paint which is made by grinding gold leaf to a fine powder, and uses either Gum Arabic or Gelatine as a binder. It is so called because traditionally it was made and sold in mussel shells.
Seeing how pigments and patterns work together...
Pigments include 'earths' such as chalk or ochre, and 'minerals' like lapis lazuli, the blue semi-precious stone that has long been prized for the beauty and intensity of its colour. (Pigments can also be made from plants, insects and synthetic substances.) Making paints from powdered pigments gives a more intense colour than commercially available paints in tubes.
'Four Season Parterre'
Gold leaf and watercolour on paper with Peridot cabochons.
54 x 54 mm / 2 ⅛ " x 2 ⅛ "
Gold leaf and watercolour on paper with Peridot cabochons.
54 x 54 mm / 2 ⅛ " x 2 ⅛ "