Black is the most primitive of colours.

Actually, I think it is a precolour (like prehistory) — the colour that existed before we understood colour. This notion is supported by its presence in prehistoric cave-paintings. And, echoing back to those ancient roots, comes it’s most common source: Bones. When we paint with black, we are still smearing an opaque layer of animal — imbedded with all these memories — across our canvas …

It is also inseparable from burning. Even when I’m handling it as a finished pigment, I can still smell its sooty aroma as I grind it and feel the echo of its experienced heat on my hand. And, like the fire from which it originates, black is a tenacious colour; one that is impossible to hide once it touches the gesso (or a hand).

These dark pigments are incredibly rich — anyone who thinks of them as the absence of something hasn’t looked closely at black! This group of pigments represent a wide tonal variety of warmth and coolness, and they share other hues within their nigrescent colouring; all of which is only seen as if through different depths of deep smoke …

Black is the very first pigment I ever made myself.

Related Posts

Local Colour Map: Kitchener | April 22, 2013 Kitchener is a city of two hundred thousand people in the Canadian province of Ontario. In 1981, the first recycling program began here and my own initial reuse of this city’s rocks have produced some subtle shades of colour. This is my first example of a displaced local colour (a new concept I’m playing with …). ...

Making Charcoal | April 20, 2009 Today the children and I began by pruning the grape vines and ended up making charcoal. With the spring here it was time to prune back the old growth on my vines so that younger, grape bearing vines could replace them.  As I was carefully choosing and pruning, my son came up asked asked what I ...

Mars Black: Kettle Point | June 12, 2008 I’m very happy to report that I have had some immediate (although unexpected) success with the pyrite nodules collected from Kettle Point: I have created Mars Black! Mars pigments are a group of synthetically produced iron oxide colours which can range from yellow-red-violet-black. They represent a purer form of the same material that gives colour to ...

Mastodon Black: Firing | April 4, 2008 Firing eleven-thousand year old ivory is a bit of a nerve wracking experience. During this process I began to rehearse in my mind what I would say to Peter Russel if something went wrong; and if I would ask for more to make a second attempt … Early on in my attempts to make ivory ...

Mastodon Black | March 15, 2008 In the beginning of my search for a good black I knew that I would be burning something. There are a couple of minerals that can be used to create black, but usually the black on an artist’s pallet is made from the carbon left over after something has been subjected to the fire. And, ...

Betty’s (Bone) Black | August 10, 2007 A few months ago Betty Spackman sent three cow bones that she picked up during a trip she took to Albert. Most of the bones she collected are earmarked for an exhibition she is planning but she was kind enough to send a few my way. As a thank you (and perhaps as something she ...

Elephantium (Ivory Black) | March 18, 2006 Historically, the making of ivory black was first described in the 4th century BC. The process, and the resulting pigment were largely unchanged until the last factory, which made this pigment, closed in Germany in 1929. To this day, Ivory Black or it’s close relative, Bone Black, are still the most widely used blacks. The ...