Mineral vs Modern Pigments

There's something to be said about using the classic colors that the old masters used, but there's been some modern innovations when it comes to artist pigments. Let's talk about those. Hi, I'm Katie Lydiard and come with me as we talk about the mineral paints versus the modern pigments. So, one of the main things about the mineral paints is that they are ground from what was around at the time. So a lot of minerals, of course.

So right now I have some Alyzer permanent and then I have a modern pigment that is Qui Aroon red and this is what I've been using instead of my Alyzer because it is, well, it has different properties than the Ezrin E. Lizin has light fast properties that make it. Unfortunately, it will start to fade over time. Um And so unfortunately, the paintings that have used a Lizin even like 50 years have started to fade because it, it just unfortunately has those problems with it. But the quadroon is somehow with modern science made to not only withstand that light fast uh issue but is far more pigmented chromatic and just a really great color to work with I'll show you what I mean.

So I have some white here. This is just lead white. I'm just using tel, uh, four size four Filbert brush and then I have my, a lizard in here. I'm just gonna start to mix that a little bit and I'll put that up here on the white canvas so you can start to see the, yeah, it's pretty pigmented. But the more white I add, of course, the less pigmented it's going to be, which is pretty typical.

That's what you would expect. Let's move on to this Quin Aroon. A lot of the modern pigments have funny names like quin aroon that are kind of hard to pronounce, but you can see just how powerful this is. So it's is it as pigmented as the ver or the a lizard over here? And it's still pretty darn pigmented, but it packs a punch that where this is starting to get dull.

This is still very, very bright. So let's add a little bit more white and you can see just how vibrant it still is. This is a really great color for painting flowers because it keeps that really vibrant, pure color where these colors, the mineral colors start to kind of get more earthy and start to fade, they start to gray out. So that's why a lot of times I will reach for my Quinones instead of my elys beyond the light fast property issues. Um It's just a lot more pigmented chromatic and a lot easier to mix with other colors.

So I hope that you give this a try start mixing your own colors together, see what works in terms of chroma and in terms of kind of graying down the different colors and see what works for your specific needs and situations. Thanks for joining me.