Something that many a medieval scribe had to do was make his or her own paints. This project grew out of an experiment in the science of scribing. I have taken great delight in reading a variety of period instruction manuals for illuminators, and I have been struck by the similarities and differences among them. One day, I decided to try out the methods of my predecessors. While all the cited references were studied, I found Vasari and da Vinci to be the least useful. Other manuscripts contained only a small amount of information on the making of paints (GMB, Hilliard). Several had extensive sections on the subject: Levey, Cennini, Theophilus. Some were quite devoted to the subject: Strasburg , De Arte Illuminandi, and Booke of Secrets. Most of them were pretty similar in their treatment of what we consider pigments, but they varied widely in the selection of colors based on dyes. The difference in the dye recipes seems based largely on the geography of the author, with the treaty written in Arabia using indigo for a blue dye, the manuscript written in Germany using cornflowers, and the manuscript written in the British Isle using woad. Modern works, such as D. Thompson and Taubes, were quite helpful in sorting out the modern from the medieval, and better defining the places where modern chemistry has advanced our understanding of the practices of the medieval scribe.
One of the ground rules that I laid for myself was this: No Toxic Pigments. This eliminated many period pigments, but I was content with this. My goal was to try out the process, not get lead poisoning.
I purchased or was given the following pigments divided in the following classes:
Earth Pigments: These pigments have been in use since man first started painting in caves. All of the medieval treatise--and the modern instructions, for that matter-- cited in the references discuss some earth pigments. Modern chemistry has made it possible for us to distinguish English Red from Indian Red from Venetian Red, but in period, illuminators would have used any red earth compound and called it Burnt Ochre. They might perhaps distinguish one particular burnt ochre as the best, but they'd all still be burnt ochre.
Modern Pigments: manmade substitutes for several period colors too expensive or difficult to obtain, or too poisonous to use.
Other Pigments:
I experimented with the following binders:
All of the above are period binders; some are more useful in illumination than others. Gums are generally preferred with blue pigments; egg binders are generally preferred with red pigments. These combinations, while designed to give the best particular color, were not always followed in medieval paint making. They did hold generally true in my experiments, however.
The general procedure I used for making the paints is as follows:
1. Grind the pigments into small particles. I wore mask and gloves to do this; I used a ceramic mortar and pestle. I placed the pigments into the device, added water enough to make a paste, and ground until I couldn't grind anymore.
2. Mix the pigment paste and the chosen binder in roughly equal amounts. When throughly mixed, paint a small strip and "check for doneness": when the paint drys, make sure that it can't be rubbed off. If it can, add more binder. If the paint dries shiny, you have too much binder. When in doubt, it is better to have a little bit more binder than needed.
The procedures I used for making the binders:
1. Gum Arabic: there were a number of different methods in the period manuscripts I consulted. A sample recipe is attached as letter "G" on the receipts page.
2. Glair: like gum, there were several alternative descriptions of the preparation of glair--generally, these receipts were all variations on a theme. Like the lamp black instructions, some receipts seemed unnecessarily complicated, while others were specific to the season or the use. One such receipt is attached as "D" amongst the receipts; this one, from De Arte Illuminandi, seemed to be the basic recipe, with the other recipes in other period manuals adding on to this basic formula.
3. Egg Yolk: This is prepared by separating the yolk from the white, grasping the yolk sac, piecing it over a small container, allowing the contents to flow into the container, and then mixing in an equal amount of water. This also was a typical period method.
I stored the paints in shells--until I ran out of shells; then I moved to pop bottle caps. I tried the various pigments in combinations with other binders and found that, on the whole, I like gum arabic, egg yolk, and gum arabic+egg yolk best. I can tolerate gum+glair, and dislike glair alone. Furthermore, in my experiment with binders, I tried improving commercial paints by adding more binders, and found that additional gum or egg yolk is nice, but glair, again, is dissatisfactory.
Dragonsblood, a resin, was difficult to work with. Since it is a resin, it had to be dissolved like the gum arabic and then added to the binder. I melted the dragonsblood in water, strained it several times (and still couldn't get the crap out of it), added it to some gum arabic, and painted it out. The color is quite faint and very transparent. Cennini disregards this color, saying that it can do the artist no credit, and I must agree. Furthermore, according to D. Thompson, the things made from Dragonsblood were generally used to glaze over gold, to give it a more reddish hue. This being the case, I have displayed my shell of Dragonsblood for viewing, but would never recommend it as something you might actually wish to use.
Also displayed are: Spanish Ochre, English Red in 3 different binders, Ultramarine Blue in two different binders, Ultramarine Violet, Imitation Gold, Sage Green (Terre Verte+Titanium White), Smoke (lamp) black, Enhanced Carmine (commercial paint+egg yolk), Venetian red, and several cards with colors, some which were made only in tiny amounts for comparison, such as, Enhanced Gamboge, Enhanced Gamboge+Titanium White, and Terre Verte.
Interestingly, I found that if I let the gum paints sit unused for a few days, they often performed better. Not so with the glair paints; what worked fine the day it was made is now challenging, and, in the case of the English Red, worthless--it makes a muddy mess.
I found that grinding the pigment to a small enough particle is quite difficult. I noted that some of the commercial colors were equally gritty in grind, and have come to the conclusion that some color just won't ever be smooth.
Some of the pigments--notably, lamp black, Aztec gold, dragonsblood, and alizarin crimson (not displayed here)--were very resistant to water; these pigments, when added to water, floated on top. Some of these responded well to a drop of a wetting agent (I used rubbing alcohol)--lamp black and alizarin crimson. The dragonsblood, when wetted with rubbing alcohol, turned the alcohol orange and solidified into a lump. I threw that away and tried again; I just let the dragonsblood sit on the water and heated the solution until it melted. The Aztec gold never mixed into a paste with anything; I eventually threw it into the gum arabic while still dry and just mixed it until I had paint.
It was a fun experiment! Please feel free to try the paints. If you would like to see them in use on a project, please look for the entry entitled "ABC and Pater Noster".
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