Color: Making and Using Dyes and Pigments

Even though this book is out-of-print, it's worth hunting down. An incredible amount of information is packed inside this small (just short of 5 X 7 inches) book. Boasting 150+ pages of beautiful color photos that range in subject matter from raw materials (used for pigment making) to illustrations on historical and present-day use in art, ceramics, and textiles.

The content is packed full of amply illustrated facts which begin with pigments application during prehistoric times. Delamare and Guineauare continue the journey though a time line that notes political, cultural, socioeconomic and technological influences on dyes and pigments.

This is a well organized and clearly written book that provides sources of information that anyone can use to better understand the development of color application through the centuries.

Color: Making and Using Dyes and Pigments
by Francois Delamare, Bernanrd Guineau

Another Pinboard to Follow

Having resisted Pinterest for about a year now, I finally dipped my toes into the virtual pool of pinboards. My apprehension was truly misdirected and I've come to find that the concept of organizing visual images/links onto a virtual board has become a great teaching tool. After covering the typical graphic design topics such as typography, and history it was a natural move to include color among the related topics. So here is a link to my All Color Matters pinboard .

Purple for the Privileged

Murex Brandaris For centuries, the color purple was both an elusive and exclusive hue. From the time of Ceasar till the conclusion of the Byzantine Empire, purple was worn by kings and those serving in a high office or positions of influence. Rulers like Nero would sentence anyone to death who dared to wear imperial purple. The Roman emperor Diocletain however, took a more economical approach by collecting taxes from anyone who was compelled to slip on the hue. Up until the 1850’s, the arduous process of acquiring this color was more involved then its close cousin—red. Not unlike red, purple was also derived from the animal kingdom. Farmed from the Mediterranean region by the Phonecians as far back as 1500 B.C., Tyrian Purple came from the mucous secretion of a predatory sea snail’s hypobranchial gland ( murex brandaris , murex trunculus , bolinus brandaris ). The sea snails were soaked and then boiled in large vats which allowed the “juice” to be removed from the gland. It t...

Color from the Ordinary Made Into the Extraordinary: Fabian Oefner

From motor oil to evaporated alcohol Fabian Oefner wields these materials as if they were ordinary pigments found on an artist's palette. Known for driving a Ferrari into a wind tunnel to splatter with neon paint, Hefner does't shrink from using unconventional materials to pursue his fixation with color. Hefner's latest series “Photographic Paintings” was an outgrowth of observing the oxidation of b ismuth that he had melted on a hotplate. The cooled compound created amazing iridescent spectrum of color. Oefner quickly realized that a scraped off layer with a spatula would change the colors and that they would on be present for a brief tine. " You get those colors, which are essentially the colors of the rainbow,” he says. The photographs have a minimal amount of digital editing done to them. Hefner's work suspends your fools us by taken advantage of the interplay of poss...

All Color Matters

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