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Pigments, Colors & Other Stories

Pigments, Colors & Other Stories

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Dive into the history of pigments and color through art, archaeology and anthropology
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María C.J
Pigment Guide #6: iron gall ink (recipes from 16th century Spain)
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Pigment Guide
The Pigment Guide is a series of posts where I will teach you how to make paint from earths and soils (plus other recipes and techniques to make your own binder, charcoal, watercolors, and more) using the natural resources available in your landscape.
Pigments, Colors & Other Stories
Pigments, Colors & Other Stories
An interdisciplinary look at color, art, cognition and the things that make us human.

Recent posts

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Pigment Guide #4: charcoal
We change gears in this post, from mineral pigment to charcoal. In this post, you'll learn how to make charcoal pencils and black pigment in a totally…
 • María C.J
What was in Diego Velazquez's palette?
Las Meninas is one of the most famous paintings in European Art History. There have been countless studies about it, but what pigments were used in…
 • María C.J
Pigment Guide #3: how to make your own watercolors
In the third installment of the Pigment Guide, I'll teach you how to make watercolors with the pigments we made in the previous post. There is also a…
 • María C.J
Royal red: from the smallest insects to the deepest color
Did you know that there are three insects, from three different continents, that have been used for millennia to make red dye?
 • María C.J
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History of Colors

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Coats of arms: the ID of the Middle Ages
How could you demonstrate who you were before modern IDs were invented?
 • María C.J
What was in Diego Velazquez's palette?
Las Meninas is one of the most famous paintings in European Art History. There have been countless studies about it, but what pigments were used in…
 • María C.J
A color challenge 🌈
I asked my Substack readers to give me a topic about history or culture and promised I'd find a connection to color. These were their questions, and my…
 • María C.J
Bonus post #2: Why are barns red?
Why are the classic North American barns red? The answer lies in a place far from America, and quite unexpected.
 • María C.J
Chromatic Rebel #2: why is the West so color-minimalist?
Have you ever observed that Western culture seems to be more minimalistic in terms of color than any other? Here I examined the reasons behind it.
 • María C.J
Chromatic Rebel #1: no to beige
Why does it seem like lately everything is beige? What´s behind this trend?
 • María C.J
Color and power: a short history of purple
When you think about the color of power, you may think of golden, because we understand the value of gold throughout history. But what if I tell you…
 • María C.J
Color on everything: a revised history of ancient architecture
For too long, we´ve assumed that architecture from the past was colorless. New conservation and restoration techniques have proven otherwise, and the…
 • María C.J

Pigments, Colors & Other Stories

An interdisciplinary look at color, art, cognition and the things that make us human.
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