Pigment Stories
Discover our Pigment Stories and the world of colour history, including unique characteristics and versatile applications. Read the captivating story of pigments, where scientific innovation, experimentation, and chance combine to create a luminous tapestry of colour. Also, elevate your practice with our curated range of paints spanning all colour groups.
Red has been available to artists since prehistory through earths, minerals, and plant dyes. Modern developments in organic and inorganic chemistry have now seen the red pigment family become one of the largest and most versatile.
While various oranges can be mixed with yellow and red, a single pigment orange can offer more vibrancy and create cleaner mixtures than any mixed orange.
Of all of the groups in the Pigment Colour Index, yellow is one of the largest. Many historic yellow pigments were toxic or fugitive, but modern chemistry has brought safer, more lightfast yellows to artist palettes.
The word green comes from the Old English grēnian, meaning to grow or to flourish. While green can be mixed using other pigments, artists have long relied on single-pigment greens to give them the most vibrant shades and mixtures. Read on to learn more and shop for green paints and pigments.
Blue has been one of the most sought-after pigments throughout history. It occurs infrequently in nature, and the first blue pigments were made from minerals like azurite and lapis lazuli, or synthetically using complex chemical reactions.
For centuries, violet and purple have been rare and valuable colours. The most famous was Tyrian Purple, an expensive dye made from mucus of thousands of sea snails from the eastern Mediterranean. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the first modern violet pigment, Cobalt Violet, was made.
Brown pigments have been available to artists since prehistory in the form of clay earths containing manganese and iron oxides. In the 18th century the Mars pigments were developed, synthetic iron oxide pigments that are still used alongside natural earth pigments today.
White was likely first used in prehistoric art through chalk, until lead-based white pigments were developed in ancient Greece and China. Lead White dominated European oil painting until Titanium White took over in the 20th Century.
Of all the artist colours, black may well have the longest history. The earliest black pigments were made using charcoal, soot, and charred animal bones, and today we still use similar carbon-based black colours.
