Mattawa River

Is there any more beautiful–and otherworldly–colour than blue? No other colour in my experience appears and disappears with such unpredictability! Blue surrounds us in our daily lives and it is as vast as the sky and the ocean itself. But, just try to take hold of it and all you’ll be left with is a handful of air or water.

Natural blue pigments are equally ephemeral and seem transient between this world and the other: Grind a bit of azurite a little to long and the colour will disappear, or don’t offer your prayer fervently enough when mixing a kettle of woad and all you’ll create is green sludge. And then there are black minerals, like vivianite, which disclose their blueness only once their rocky physicality is removed and a shapeless powder is all that remains.

It always takes a little bit of magic and luck to create blue pigments.

Related Posts

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    Interesting article this morning about the colour blue in the New York Times with lots of examples from all over the spectrum. An enjoyable read—http://nyti.ms/XLdJsr
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    Icon: Painting | September 24, 2008Icon Painting
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    So here we are! After preparing the polygorskite and the woad it’s time to make my Maya Blue pigment. Maya Blue is a really interesting pigment. By itself, the blue of indigo darkens to black over time but once this plant material is embedded into the polygorskite clay, the results are amazing permanent. Instances of Maya ...
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    With the ground prepared only one things remained to be done: Planting the woad seeds. Here again I had little helpers and, by the end, I think we had worked out a nice system.  I did the plowing of a shallow trough (using the old hoe my grandfather gave to me) and my children followed and ...
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