Voici le billet que je dois faire pour expliquer tout ce que je veux faire avec mon projet des 95 pigments. Tous les détails, toutes les choses que je veux partager avec vous, toutes les choses que je veux apprendre… Je n’arrêt pas de procrastiner parce que je veux que ce billet soit parfait, mais plus d’objectif de perfection! Alors s’il vous reste des questions après ce billet, envoyez moi les dans les commentaires.

objective : learning, and focusing

This spring, I started soooo many projects : crushing rocks, making lake pigments, making inks, thinking about dyes…. dyeing paper, pressing flowers into paper, making cyanotypes. All of these are such interesting techniques! And a lot of these techniques were aimed at “making pigments” to later turn into watercolor paints.

But the pigments I made seemed too precious to use in a trial and error method to learn how much binder I needed, or which humectant I would prefer. So I also bought a few pigments that looked interesting. But then realized most of these pigments were among the “rough” ones to mull….

Ce printemps, j’ai commencé tellement de projets : concasser des roches, faire des pigments laque, des encres, réfléchir à teindre des tissus…. teindre du papier, presser des fleurs dans du papier, faire des cyanotypes. Toutes des techniques super chouettes! Et j’ai vite réalisé que plusieurs visaient à “faire des pigments” qui pourraient ensuite devenir des aquarelles.

Mais ces pigments me semblaient trop précieux pour être utilisés dans des essais/erreurs pour apprendre combien de liant est nécessaire, quel humectant je préfère. Alors j’ai acheté quelques pigments synthétiques pour me faire la main. Mais après, je me suis rendue compte que certains de ces pigments étaient parmi les plus difficiles à transformer en aquarelle….

When I stumbled upon a set of pigments in sample size, I hesitated a little and then plunged. This would be the opportunity to use ALL OF the pigments in the sets, study them, and use the list as a sort of plan to guide my exploration of pigments.

Quand je suis tombée sur des sets de pigments en format échantillon, j’ai d’abord hésité. Puis j’ai plongé. Ce serait une opportunité d’utiliser TOUS LES pigments des deux sets, de les étudier, et d’utiliser la liste des pigments comme une sorte de guide pour faire mon exploration.

the source of the 95 pigments

I found two sets of 40 ml jars of pigments at Ocres de France, a french pigment supplier. They don’t only sell the pigments, they actually produce ochre pigments (if you want to learn more about the manufacturing of ochres).

J’ai trouvé ces deux sets de pigments chez Ocres de France, un fournisseur de pigment français. Mais attention, ils ne font pas que vendre les pigments, ils fabriquent les ocres qu’ils extraient des mines locales (si vous souhaitez en savoir plus sur l’industrie ocrière de nos jours).

• The 47 natural pigments set from Ocres de France – Le set de 47 pigments naturels de Ocres de France
• The 49 synthetic pigments set from Ocres de France – Le set de 49 pigments synthétiques de Ocres de France

the first pigment

The first pigment I mulled was ocre abricot de Puisaye. A very deep and brown ochre that I thought would be more orange/yellow because of its name, but also because of the color of the pigment. It is so fun to see the differences between the pigment powder and the resulting paint.

Le premier pigment que j’ai travaillé était l’ocre abricot de Puisaye. Un ochre avec une jolie profondeur, que je croyais qui deviendrait plutôt jaune orangé, alors qu’il est devenu relativement foncé lors de sa transformation. C’est tellement magique de voir la transformation de la couleur entre le pigment et la peinture.

In the end, it took me 4 tries to get the recipe right. It was a fun adventure that made me learn about ochre pigments. The second pigment I tried, the recipe was perfect the first time. Yay! But it is no coincidence: I had learned from that first pigment.

Au bout du processus, cela m’aura pris 4 essais pour trouver les bons ratios (un cinquième essai pour confirmer le tout). Par contre, j’ai appris beaucoup sur les pigments de type ocre. Et pour le deuxième, le premier essai fut le bon! Youppi! Mais ce n’est pas le fruit du hasard, mais bien le résultat des essais avec le premier pigment.

what will I share with you all?

Over on instagram, I will share with you some tips and pics of the process of many of the pigments in this project. I might share them all…. though it might be a lot!

Also, while mulling, I also love to make muller prints and monoprints. In fact, a few pigments in, I realize I am having maybe even more fun making those abstract pieces than actually mulling the paints.

Sur instagram, je vais partager mes découvertes en photo, et certaines astuces que je vais découvrir au cours de ce projet. Je vais peut-être partager chacun des pigments… ou pas tous parce que peut-être que cela fera beaucoup!

Pendant que je fais les aquarelles, j’ai découvert ces petites réalisations abstraites en faisant des impressions de la molette et des monotypes. Faire ces petites réalisations devient parfois plus intéressant même que faire les aquarelles elles-mêmes.

will I share some of the paint?

The short answer would be “not really”. For one, the sample jars are a little small, and before I get the recipe right, there might not be that much pigment left. But there might be some limited editions available throughout the project, if I manage to have good recipes, who knows?

En très bref, pas tellement. D’abord, parce que les quantités de chaque pigment ne sont pas très importantes. Je dois parfois refaire certaines recettes plusieurs fois, il ne restera peut-être pas assez de pigments pour en faire pour tout le monde. Mais peut-être que j’aurai quelques éditions limités à offrir pendant le projet… qui sait?

will I share some of the art?

Oh yes! I plan to offer some of the art, I will let you know as soon as some are up on the shop. However, I’m sill planning the details as to what, prices and all. I’m also wondering if I should keep some as sets or something… but these are reasons why I procrastinated writing this. Not everything is yet figured out!

Oh que oui! Je planifie offrir plusieurs réalisations sur la boutique. Dès qu’elles seront disponibles, je vous le dirai. Mais je suis encore en train de planifier les détails, les prix, …. Je me demande aussi si je ne devrais pas en garder certaines en collection. Mais tout n’est pas décidé, c’est en partie pour cette raison que je n’arrêtais pas de procrastiner sur ce billet.

will I share the recipes?

Hum…. I am trying to figure out the best way to share these as well. I’m pondering a little book or offering the recipes on an individual basis. This too will be announced as soon…. as I figured out!

Oh oui, j’aimerais cela. Mais là aussi je réfléchis à la meilleure façon de procéder. Je réfléchis à faire un petit livre, ou à offrir les recettes sur une base individuelles, en fonction de ce qui vous intéresseraient. Je vais vous en reparler…. dès que j’aurai décidé!

Que sont les pigments dit “laque” (laque de Garance par exemple)? Et peut-on en faire à la maison? Ce billet vise à vous donner quelques références pour vous lancer et à documenter mes premiers essais.

so what is a lake pigment?

So there is the Wikipedia definition that goes around. I encourage you to read it. But if you are totally new to dyeing, ink making and such. It will not mean much to you. I’ve been reading a while about it, and I’m still unsure!

Il existe une définition sur le Wikipédia en anglais (voir plus haut) qui est en fait assez peu éclairante pour quiconque n’est pas familier avec les termes de teinture ou d’encres. Même en ayant lu un peu sur le sujet, je m’y perd encore. Je n’ai pas retrouvé la traduction de cette définition sur Wikipédia, mais il y a quelques infos sur l’article relatif aux pigments.

In short, you take a dye or an ink that you made. You add alum, which has been dissolved into water. You then add sodium carbonate, also know as soda ash, also dissolved into water. The whole thing bubbles like crazy and then, after a while, pigment settles on the bottom. You filter, and voilà! Pigment!

Très simplement, on part d’une teinture ou d’une encre. On ajoute de l’alum, dissous dans de l’eau. On ajoute du sodium de carbonate, fréquemment référencé comme “soda ash” en anglais, qui est aussi dissous dans l’eau. Le truc se met à faire de la mousse (ça peut être assez impressionant!) et après un moment, du pigment se crée et s’accumule au fond. On filtre, et voilà! Du pigment!

what can you lake?

You might know of rose madder lake? That is probably the most famous lake, made from roots of a plant. But Carmine is also a lake, but made of crushed insects, the cochineal. So many things can “be laked”. From my limited exploration of this subject though, if you have made a botanical ink, you can probably try to “lake it”.

Vous connaissez probablement la Garance? C’est probablement la plus connue, du moins pour moins. Cette couleur est tirée de la racine d’une plante. Mais il existe aussi le Carmin. S’il s’agit également d’un pigment laqué, il tire sa couleur d’un insecte cette fois, la cochenille. De mes explorations encore préliminaires de ce vaste sujet, il semblerait que si vous avez fait une encre végétale, vous pourrez vraisemblablement vous essayer à en tirer un pigment laqué!

my first try

So the other day I made some avocado ink, that I made following Melissa Mary Jenkins’ recipe she graciously put up on her blog. During a live, she mentionned that avocados shouldn’t be thrown after the first batch of ink… they could be reused. So I did. And I did. Until I got tired. I made 4 batches of “ink” and ended up with something like 4 liters of ink. LITERS!!! It was the perfect time to try the laking process.

L’autre jour, j’ai fait de l’encre d’avocat, en suivant la recette de Melissa Mary Jenkins. La recette est disponible (en anglais) sur son site web. Pendant un live sur Insta, elle a mentionné que les noyaux pouvaient être réutilisés plusieurs fois. Alors je l’ai fait. Et encore. Jusqu’à ne plus savoir quoi en faire! J’avais 4 LITRES d’encre au bout du process. C’était le moment d’essayer le pigment laqué!

I cannot wait for the pigment to dry… but it is said it can take a few days…. I’ll update you when I know! I am currently running other trials. I will try to document everything thoroughly in order to let you know more about the results!

J’ai hâte que le pigment ait séché! Mais il semble que cela puisse prendre plusieurs jours… Je suis en train de faire d’autres expériences aussi. Je vais tâcher de les documenter comme il le faut pour pouvoir vous en reparler!

references

So you want to try to make a lake? It is very fun! Though I’ve not yet completed the drying of my first batch… I will update this post as I advance, Here are more advanced ladies that will provide you with a lot of info and are well worth the support.

Alors, vous voulez vous essayer? C’est très amusant! Bien que je n’ai pas encore terminé mon premier processus au complet…. Je mettrai à jour l’info dans ce billet au fur et à mesure! Je vous laisse toutefois une liste de lecture par des femmes formidables qui partagent leurs procédés et qui méritent bien votre attention. Je n’ai pas traduit ce qui suit, les références étant en anglais. Mais si vous avez des questions… n’hésitez pas en commentaires ou sur insta!

a few ink recipes

• Avocado ink recipe by Melissa Mary Jenkins
• How to capture spring flowers in ink by Melissa Mary Jenkins

the first lake “recipes” I am using

• Natalie Stopka made a post with her laking process. She also gives much more info on pots and everything you need in a story highlight.
• The one first published in a Rebecca Desnos magazine

books and workshops

• A paintmaker’s ressource – A blog post I wrote for Amanda of Boulder Colors. You will find a list of all the materials you need and links to where to get them, including need-to-haves and nice-to-haves things for when making paint or laking pigments.
• Ebook and Digital course – Turning plants into watercolors by Boulder Colors. I have read this book and even made a few illustrations and this is an amazing resource by Amanda. And there is a version with a video demo if you want. To say Amanda knows her stuff is an understatement!

inspiration on instagram

• Texas Wild Color sells some watercolor paints with lake pigments (I have bought a few and they have encouraged me to pursue these experiments. She is currently in West Africa and experimenting lake making with local plants. It’s fascinating to follow!
• Natalie Stopka is the author of the first lake recipe I shared earlier
• The Green Hippopotamus posts many laking experiments often with videos
• Bergette pigments posts amazingly photogenic shots of the pigments she makes
• You can also find a few hashtags on the gram to find artists experimenting with such processes #lakepigment among others.

I won’t get into the whole discussion of single vs multi pigment colors today, I simply wanted to share a project I made with my little swatches. But if this topic interests you, here is a great read about Why you should (or should not) stick to single pigments in watercolor? by Lee Angold.

This post is a way to share my explorations, it is not quite a theoric explanation of color mixing! So please enjoy it with its qualities and limits.

This posts contains some affiliate links that are identified as such. If you buy something from these links I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Main objectives : Saving money and Color study

The main idea I wanted to explore was the following: in theory, if you buy the single pigment tubes of paints, then surely you should be able to mix all the other colors in a company’s range of paints, thus saving money. Right? Well yes and no!

My second goal doing this was to get a better understanding and knowledge about colors. When I started Huevember by Denise Soden, I was amazed to learn that Sap green was not a single pigment color, but that each marker and brand seemed to have their own recipe for it. It got me wanting to learn more.

The project : using the Daniel Smith’s Dotcard

So I wanted to see if I could do this using my Daniel Smith’s dot card (affiliate link). I had already used the sample dots to see the colors, but I was searching for a fun project to make with the rest of the dots. And for many colors, there are that much, so the project had to be small!

I first printed out the color chart for all 238 Daniel Smith’s watercolors. It has the pigment info on them. And then, proceeded to paint small swatches on Legion Stonehenge (affiliate link) 1 inch by 1 1\2 inch little rectangles.

It was a bit of a long adventure, but I did appreciate the exercise. Though the size of the swatches is small, it is big enough to give you an idea if you appreciate painting with that particular color.

I ended up with a great result. Go check my Instagram posts about them to see the little cards all lined up by color.

Being the nerd I am… the first thing I tried to make what a sort of map of all the colors in a somewhat color wheel way… My plan was to put the single pigments and under them, the mixed ones. It worked well with yellow/oranges/reds…. but the bottom half of the page ended up a bit too crowded. In the end, it did help me study the colors. I have plans to transform this into a colored version…. will be much more interesting.

Single vs Multiple pigment hues

I looked at single pigments. Throughout the collection, I noted every pigment that was used. Interesting fact, 4 pigments (noted in the bottom) were not available as single pigment colors. There goes the “you can mix any colors with the single pigment colors”. Of course, there is the possibility I made a mistake. ahha!

Then, I looked to visually put all the single pigment paint swatches together. On the following pictures, the top row are mixed pigment colors. The bottom row are single pigment colors. I was surprises to see there were many more of those than of the mixed pigments!

Multiple pigment hues

So in my sketchbook, I also planned, with some examples, how to visualize mixed pigment hues.

The easiest combination: two colors making a third. That is pretty straight forward. This is the case for the famous Quinacridone gold, which is made with a mix of P048 – Quinacridone burnt orange and PY150 – Nickel Azo Yellow (one of my favorite colors!).

But then you realize sometimes, two colors make more than one mix. That is the case with the PO48 and PY150, which are also used to make Quinacridone deep gold. Oh well then…. that is good news because that means if I buy tubes of two colors, I can then mix 4 of the colors of the range. Very neat!

And then, I started to look at more complicated colors, which use more than two single pigments. And that’s where it gets interesting… though a little confusing!

Lets start with a simple one : Sap green. I had mentioned in at the beginning of this post. Daniel Smith’s sap green is made out of three pigments : P048 – Quinacridone burnt orange, PG7 – Phthalo Green and PY150 – Nickel Azo Yellow. Now that might get a little more complicated to mix on a regular basis to the exact shade.

Which is why those mixed pigment colors are often called Convenience mixes. If you use them a lot, then by all means, buy a tube because you might turn mad trying to reach that exact shade every time you feel like using that hue.

Multiple hues in single pigments

When I started to get interested into color theory I learned about pigment numbers. I thought I had the key to something: well there is a pigment number, this must mean that all of those pigments are the same hue/color….. Boy was I wrong! It couldn’t be THAT simple, right!

Where it gets really confusing, is when you get to PY43, PBr7, PR101 and such. For those pigment “families”, there are multiple shades. In the pictures below, I grouped the swatches by pigment number. And you will see some big variations between them! (please keep in mind those pictures might not be totally calibrated, but pay attention to the difference between the swatches rather than the colors itself).

A complicated mix!

So let’s take a complicated example: Olive Green. The info on this tube of colors is that it is mixed with PY97, Pb29, PBr7. So great, if I want to save some money, I’ll grab these three tubes. I’ll be able to mix this olive green color and probably many others, right?

Only problem is there are two PB29 in the Daniel Smith’s line and seven PBr7, wight if you count Van Dyck Brown that is a mix of all of those itself. And who says the pigments that go into the mix are the exact ones going into the making of this olive green? You see where I’m going with this?

Word of the end?

I believe this exercise has made me understand colors better. I love warm yellows and I love colors that are mixed with warm yellows. It would make sense for me to stock up on tubes of single pigment warm yellows.

I also love colors mixed with such yellows. So with a few chosen colors, I might end up being able to mix tons of superb hues that I will use and love.

However, convenience mixes are there for a reason. And if you look at some colors like that Olive Green, if it is a color you love to use, by all means jump on the convenience tube because seriously, you might get a little frustrated mixing to match that perfect shade! Especially if you ever use the wrong mixing color….

What do you think?