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Pigments and colour paints and how they are made
COLOUR & PIGMENTS
The world we live in is full of colour and there is much of it that can be used to
make paints and inks, something our ancestors were familiar with long ago. They discovered
that red, brown and yellow ochres can be obtained from the soil, strong blues from
lapis lazuli and cobalt, green from malachite, and white from lime and lead. Ash,
from their fires, would have been mixed with animal fats to make blacks and greys,
and the ashes of the animal and bird bones cooked over those fires make good whites.
Many plants and berries are also used to obtain colour, among them woad and indigo
which give good blues.
The chosen pigment is ground and mixed with gum, fat, or water to 'carry' it and
make it flow. 
The colour resulting from these pigments can then be applied with anything
that makes a decent brush, or applicator, whether it be twigs, which can be chewed
to fray the ends, animal hair, the mouth or the hands. Early man often left his signature
on drawings by leaving a hand print and some of these are surrounded by colour which looks
as though it was blown from an airbrush, the hand print being excluded of colour.
We can only deduce that the paint was actually blown from the mouth or, perhaps,
from a bladder or gourd with a fine hole in it.
Cinnabar, or minium, the pigment obtained from red lead, was once used for the striking
red lettering and decoration often to be found in the opening words of the text of
a manuscript and in the page decoration. 
The Egyptians were among the first to find
it striking enough to use in places of importance or emphasis, such as text headings,
and it has been used by scribes throughout history. The Latin name for this pigment,
minium, gives rise to the term miniature. The person skilled in working with minium
was called a miniator and the things he applied his craft to were called miniatures,
whether they were tiny or not.
The scribes of old also knew a thing or two about the long-lasting effects of certain
chemicals when combined or placed next to each other. Some pigments will combine,
where two colours meet on a page, and have a corrosive effect over time. Colours
that would have an adverse reaction on each other were often separated by a fine
line of a 'safe' colour to keep them apart, thus avoiding this destructive process.
Where colours would attack the page directly, a coat of a different colour and pigment
would be painted on first to protect the vellum or parchment.
A clue to the original pigmentation of a certain colour is often in the names of
modern paints. Titanium white, cobalt blue, and veridian green are but a few and
the better quality artists paints will even contain that pigment. Many paints still
use original pigments but there are more and more chemically produced colours on
the market, which offer better light-fastness and permanence.
Useful Links:
The colour resulting from these pigments can then be applied with anything
that makes a decent brush, or applicator, whether it be twigs, which can be chewed
to fray the ends, animal hair, the mouth or the hands. Early man often left his signature
on drawings by leaving a hand print and some of these are surrounded by colour which looks
as though it was blown from an airbrush, the hand print being excluded of colour.
We can only deduce that the paint was actually blown from the mouth or, perhaps,
from a bladder or gourd with a fine hole in it.
The Egyptians were among the first to find
it striking enough to use in places of importance or emphasis, such as text headings,
and it has been used by scribes throughout history. The Latin name for this pigment,
minium, gives rise to the term miniature. The person skilled in working with minium
was called a miniator and the things he applied his craft to were called miniatures,
whether they were tiny or not.
