Making a pigment from a rock

Vaucluse house tassels and trimmings

December 24, 2019

Crushing, grinding, sieving and mulling is how I commence my artwork. For my new series paper is painted with a brush stroke made from a gypsum stone. I crush rock into a pebble and then with a mortar and pestle grind it into a powder, and later a glass muller.

The next step is to sieve this powder, however it is still too large to turn into a paint or a pigment. Pouring a small amount of it onto a sheet of glass, and with a muller I grind it with a small amount of rain water. After minutes of mulling the feel of the grind changes from gritty to smooth. It now a pigment that I store it in a jar. I repeat the mulling process until all the fine powder has become a pigment. For this series it took two days to complete this process.

As with any pigment it needs other ingredients to become a paint. I add gum arabic and egg yolk for a binder, honey for viscosity, and finally rain water to make it ready to brush onto paper.

This is the first step to create my new style of art, Point-illism.