I might have mentioned that I worked for 5 years in a pigment shop. It changed my life and changed my painting when I finally got around to cooking up my own watercolor paints. Being surrounded by 500+ colors did it. The Kremer Pigmente catalog cover is from one of my color test sheets..it wasn't my idea. We have dozens of color charts like the one below, hand-made in London, How else to show a gazillion colors?
Passerbys come in begging to buy these glass jars all the time. Not for sale. Sometimes I am asked if that is Yves Klein's Blue in the window? No, but we have 33 different shades of blue to choose from.
My Moleskine to the rescue. That rock chunk is a piece of unmilled pigment - Burnt Sienna. They roast Raw Sienna in a big oven to get that color. It doesn't come that way out of the earth. And Terre Verte? The Old Masters loved it (they didn't have too many choices back then) . Now called Green Earth, but Terre Verte sounds classier.
These are just a few of the Cadmium pigments - 22 different colors. They come packed in 100 gram bags - yes Metric system. That's about 3.3 ounces. Why is it when I'm in Paris, I never have any trouble with the Metric system in a patisserie..hmm
This is what our new store looks like on west 29th street. HUGE! The old store in Soho was about the size of my closet. You couldn't turn around and by the end of day I was coughing from pigment dust. If you'd love ❤️ to be covered in pigment visit the Holi Celebration in India and get it out of or into your system.
Hand-blown glass mullers for mixing your paint up. You will not be grinding the pigment. They already did that at the mill in Germany. You will just be integrating binder (linseed oil, honey, gum Arabic, egg tempera etc.) into the pigment. On the left is a pharmaceutical mortar and pestle.
You can get one in a kitchenware store.
P.S. I made the pilgrimage to ROUSSILLON in '05 and wrote about it in May.
