Troy McFarland: Art From Scratch

Blue Crush

2009-09-28T22:24:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I crushed some of my Azurite. As I mentioned in a previous post, when I tried doing using the tried and true slurry technique, it made bubbles and a lot floated on top, similar to flour being poorly mixed with water. I let the pigment settle & water evaporate. As you can see in the photos, the slurry technique doesn't seem to be working well with water. I could try alcohol because it has a lower surface tension. The only problem is that even if it works better, I really don't want to make rubbing alcohol from scratch! I think I'd need a distillery license for that. So, maybe I need to try the soap technique.

Ochre Refinement Part II

2009-09-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, the ochre finally dried again, and I had a chance to scratch away the last of the rough particles.

Drying. Still moist, but cracks have formed. Ever notice how mud cracks are always 3 lines at an intersection? Never 4 or 5? There's a reason for it (path of least resistance, conservation of energy, something like that) , but I don't know the details. Have them? Tell me!

Here, a couple of the pieces are flipped to show the sandy bottom. This part was scratched off with a putty knife, leaving only the finer pigment particles.

An example of the raw dirt & the dirt after it's been refined via a slurry twice.

Here is a disappointing image: When mixed with walnut oil, it is very close to the normal umber that I got from my parent's regular soil (the kind that doesn't require heavy digging to get to it). It's a tiny bit lighter and more yellow, but not nearly as much so as when it is in powder form.

There's a bigger difference between it & the burnt umber though :)

I'm going to try using this pigment in a tempra (egg whites) medium and see how it looks when it dries next. If that doesn't work, then I question it if will be worth using it along with the other two tones. It's just not yellow enough like this, and not worth digging deep to get to it :(

Ochre Refinement

2009-09-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go out on a limb & call this stuff ochre. It's dirt, and it's yellowish. Close enough for me right now. It also drys my hands out much like Burning Man Playa dust, so I wonder if it is an alkaline... I might test that out with vinegar to see if it bubbles. If so, maybe I should neutralize it before using it on a painting.

I got tired of waiting for the slurry to dry, so I scooped out the good stuff with a putty knife & spread it on paper towels so it would dry faster. I figured this would be OK, because I was planning on doing two slurrys to get the best of the best.

When it's wet, it gets really dark and brownish. The brown piece between the putt knife & the dried ochre is what a moment prior was dry ochre, but sucked up some moisture from the wet ochre on the left. This makes me think it's not going to mix with walnut oil well. I'm guessing it will work better in egg yolk. I'll have to try them out side by side and see what happens.

On the left is the silt that I scooped out & on the right is all the sand & coarse dirt. I'd guess the proportion is about 1/8 silt.

Before crushing

After

This much pigment came from about 1/4 pound of dirt. I then took all of this, and mixed it in water again (not pictured). I was surprised to see a fair amount of sand separate out to the bottom! I'll update with final pigment & tests in a few more days. It will have to dry (not get scooped out) this time so I can scratch off the coarse particles more carefully. That takes about a week.

Back to Earth

2009-08-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

I visited my parent's house two weekends ago, and found yet another earth pigment! My dad had dug a very deep hole with his excavator, in hopes that he could make an artificial pond. No such luck. But what he thinks might be sandstone (too soft for it in my opinion) I think might be related to ochre.

Here's a couple of comparison shots between the three tones I've found on his land so far. The brown/red is his normal soil, the reddest sample is that same soil after a bonfire has taken place on top of it, and the yellow/ochre is in his orchard, starting at about 4 feet deep in pockets, and showing up as deep as the 12' or so hole that he dug.

By the way, I was able to see different colors in this sample, like sedimentary layers. Maybe in a few thousand years, it would become a sedimentary rock.

Here's what it looks like in a standard slurry test (my attempt to get the fine particles separated out from the coarse ones with water. It settled in under an hour, very, very fast for such a test!). There's a lot of sand in there. I crushed it first in my mortar, and I think the crushing might have affected the color a bit. It's redder now. We'll see how it handles when it dries.

Baby (Blue) Steps

2009-04-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

I finally did a sound check at our house. One of the things that has been slowing my progress (besides Valve's Orange Box-O-Distractions) is my worry that I'll wake Ravenna up at night. So, I cranked some music in the garage & listened in her room. Barely can hear it!

I crushed some Azurite tonight & ground it into a powder. I wore a particle mask, but when I took it off after I was done, there was no burning hair smell like Lapis Lazuli. I then mixed it with water, so the finer particles will settle on the top. I've read that mixing it with soap & boiling it will leave the good stuff on the top, but I didn't want to go through all the trouble, so went with the slower way.

Since I was at it, I also did the same for the crushed eggshell in another container. Both formed bubbles, and the azurite had a lot of floating pigment on top, as you would expect when mixing flour with water the wrong way. I'll hopefully get some photos soon.

Good News & Bad News

2009-02-03T00:18:00.000-08:00

From Troy McFarland: Art From Scratch

I've been reading The Materials & Techniques of Medieval Painting By Daniel V. Thompson on the bus for a couple of weeks now.

I'm pleasantly surprised that some of the techniques I came up with to create a pigment are listed in here. For example, I took a patina recipe on the web (salt, ammonia, & vinegar), and experimented with it until I found that using just vinegar produces the best pigment. This was done a variety of ways in Medieval times for the same reason. The pigment is called 'Verdigris', also described in the book as an 'acetate of copper'.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that I just did an MSDS search on the effects of Copper (II) acetate, and it is not safe at all. Here's the MSDS, and here is the wiki entry on it.

By the way, vinegar fumes will create lead white pigment, which is potentially even scarier than copper (but not by much, it would seem)

I may continue to use this green pigment, but maybe it would be safer to stick with ground malchite.

Hazards listed on the MSDS site (thankfully I've been using a resperator & keeping Ravenna out of the garage with working with it):

Emergency Overview
--------------------------
DANGER! CAUSES EYE BURNS. HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED. CAUSES IRRITATION TO SKIN AND RESPIRATORY TRACT.

SAF-T-DATA^(tm) Ratings (Provided here for your convenience)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Health Rating: 2 - Moderate (Life)
Flammability Rating: 1 - Slight
Reactivity Rating: 1 - Slight
Contact Rating: 3 - Severe
Lab Protective Equip: GOGGLES & SHIELD; LAB COAT & APRON; VENT HOOD; PROPER GLOVES; CLASS D EXTINGUISHER
Storage Color Code: Green (General Storage)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Potential Health Effects
----------------------------------

Inhalation:
Causes irritation to respiratory tract, symptoms may include coughing, sore throat, and shortness of breath. May result in ulceration and perforation of respiratory tract. When heated, this compound may give off copper fume, which can cause symptoms similar to the common cold, including chills and stuffiness of the head.
Ingestion:
May cause burning pain in the mouth, esophagus, and stomach. Hemorrhagic gastritis, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, metallic taste, and diarrhea may occur. If vomiting does not occur immediately systemic copper poisoning may occur. Symptoms may include capillary damage, headache, cold sweat, weak pulse, kidney and liver damage, central nervous excitation followed by depression, jaundice, convulsions, blood effects, paralysis and coma. Death may occur from shock or renal failure.
Skin Contact:
May cause irritation with redness and pain.
Eye Contact:
Corrosive. May cause irritation, redness, pain, blurred vision, discoloration, and damage.
Chronic Exposure:
Prolonged or repeated skin exposure may cause dermatitis. Prolonged or repeated exposure to dusts of copper salts may cause discoloration of the skin or hair, blood and liver damage, ulceration and perforation of the nasal septum, runny nose, metallic taste, and atrophic changes and irritation of the mucous membranes.
Aggravation of Pre-existing Conditions:
Persons with pre-existing skin disorders, impaired liver, kidney, or pulmonary function, glucose 6-phosphate-dehydrogenase deficiency, or pre-existing Wilson's disease may be more susceptible to the effects of this material.

Screw the Canvas!

2009-01-16T22:39:00.000-08:00

So, I've been reading the book "The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting" by Daniel V. Thompson. (Thanks for the Christmas present cousin Debbie!) It's a great read, and I highly recommend it. But Dan, I can't help but imagine your voice as anything other than a woman's! Don't know why, but it's true.

Anyway, I've never really liked painting on canvas. It's a hard to do detail work with all those bumps. Reading his book, I've found that the surface of choice back in the day was wood panels, primed & prepared with gesso and plaster and other stuff. With glue made from cheese. Thats just too cool! Who knew that cheese and lime could make glue?!

I've been avoiding the whole making the canvas part of this project for a while. I mean, canvas involves growing stuff, and rotting (er, I mean retting) and beating the crap out of it, then spinning it & weaving it etc. How frickin' girly. Except the beating part. That can't be easy.

I don't know what it is, but I just don't like most fabric arts. There was some really huge 'soft sculptures' (let's be honest, they were stuffed plushies on steroids) at a modern art muesum the first time I went to LA. I was not impressed.

Now wood is a different story. To make a wood panel, I first will need to make some wicked cool metal tools. That means I'll have to do pretty much everything except maybe the smelting. Casting, forging, sharpening, trying to figure out if I really need to smelt tin to mix with copper to make bronze or if *ANYONE* on earth had tin back in 4004 BC. That could be very cool.

Cool, because this will involve fire, furnaces, hacking and cutting. The artistic equivalent of shoveling the snow in the dead of winter while exiled in Siberia. I'm pretty sure I can work carving in there if I try hard enough. Actually a lot of wood panels had carved inlays in the work. So there. I can.

I'm much more excited about this now. Anyone know the building codes of Seattle, and if permits are needed for kilns & furnaces and the like in one's backyard?

Time to get back on the horse

2009-01-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

Well, after too much time spent on video games and surfing the web, my computer recently succumbed to a nasty Vundo trojan. (I'm writing this on my wife's Mac).

Sidenote: I recommend against surfing the web for the lyrics to Cyndi Lauper's "She-Bop" Bigger waste of time than I could have imagined. If you do, do it on a Mac, or at least have all your software up to date. Vundo is nasty and now I need to nuke & pave my machine!

So, for the last couple of days, I've stayed away from the computer at home. When I got home tonight, I had some late Christmas presents from my cousin Debby arrive. In addition to a very cool Richard Cheese CD & Golf Journal, I got the book: The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting by Daniel V Thompson. Talk about great timing! I've already read the Lapis Lazuli section, and am hoping to make it through Azurite shortly. Finally I can put that expensive hunk of rock to good use!

Maybe I shouldn't have gotten those games...

2008-11-22T20:24:00.001-08:00

Considering how much Art From Scratch work I've done recently, maybe I should have reconsidered buying the Orange Box as a reward for getting my webhosting mess in order.

Curse you Valve! Your games are too good! And I just bought Half Life for 98 cents last night and played it waaay too long!

By the way, my wife knows why it's called Half-Life. It's because that's how much time has been taken from my other activities.

Random, The other blog.

2008-11-02T21:55:00.001-08:00

I realize that I shouldn't be putting too many non-art related ideas in this blog. And politics don't belong here either. So I created a new blog for such items.:
http://troymcfarland.blogspot.com/

If random ramblings interest you, I hope you'll visit.

Cheers,
Troy

He DID make his own tools... sort of

2008-09-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

I rented "Alone in the Wilderness" from Scarecrow Video (The Powell's bookstore of video rentals... if you can't find it here, and they don't know how to get it, the tape cannot be found), and Dick made the handles for his tools. His reasoning was that it would be easier to pack into the area. This video is really worth watching. He wasn't a sport hunter, and wasn't a hippie. He hunted and grew his own food and respected the land. He reminded me a lot of my Grandpa Dow.

PBS Rocks

2008-09-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

I was channel surfing today, and saw a piece on PBS about Richard Proenneke, a man who retired at 50 in 1967, built a cabin on a lake in Alaska (FROM SCRATCH), and lived there for 30 years.

I happened upon this program on local PBS affiliate KCTS about halfway through. So, I don't know if he built his tools from scratch. I doubt it. But I was amazed at how well he was able to use his tools. I was also surprised at how well he was able to make boards out of a log with just a handsaw. When I've tried sawing with the grain, the grain usually pulled me where it wanted to go, and the cut never looked very good.

You can find & buy the DVD at http://www.dickproenneke.com/

M. Graham Factory Tour: Now on Blogger

2008-08-23T00:54:00.001-07:00

Here's a reprint of the in depth article I did about the M. Graham Paint Factory tour from June of last year. It was on an older server, so I'm moving it over here for easier access. Probably one of the longest posts you'll see on this site :)

The original overview blog post is here.

I met Art Graham a number of years ago when he was giving demonstrations (and free samples of his paint!) at the University of Oregon Bookstore’s annual Art Tools of the Trade show. He was very generous in not only his samples, but also in sharing knowledge. At the time I was getting ready to work on an oil paint based stop frame animation. One problem I kept running into was that my paint would keep drying on me before I was done with a scene. I switched to M. Graham paints for the piece which helped (walnut oil dries slower than linseed oil), but the one suggestion he gave me that really did the trick was to add a couple of drops of clove oil to the mix. This slowed down the drying time to about three or four weeks before I got a skin on the paint. My locker smelled like clove oil for the rest of the year!

So, when I was getting ready to start the From Scratch project, he sprung to mind as someone who could help.

The Visit

We visited M. Graham paints on Wednesday, April 11. Before I visit any place for the first time, I inevitably imagine what it will look like and how the experience will play out. These expectations are never same with the reality. Not better or worse, just different. I expected a larger building, as I had no idea how much space the mixing, milling, and filling machines would take up. It was a cozier and friendlier than I expected. One thing that did match my imagination was the passion for quality that was evident in every step of the process. There was also a sense of pride and idealism. This company is being run by someone who simply will not compromise quality for profit. One reason Art started his own company was when he worked at a previous artist’s color company, he began to question why there were formula changes throughout the years. He found out it always came down to money over quality.

I also had no idea how much of the process was done by M. Graham paints, and how much was left in the hands of vendors. What I learned was that instead of doing absolutely everything (like my project), Art is more like a master chef. He carefully chooses the finest ingredients, and mixes them according to his carefully guarded recipes for maximum quality in his paints. His art lies in coming up with the best mixture.

So, his company doesn’t create the pigment, but has found companies who provide the best pigments available. He doesn’t grow the walnuts that go into his walnut oil, but he has found a supplier who has a consistency that is perfect for his paints. He doesn’t smelt and roll the metal that becomes his tubes of paint… you get the idea. He concentrates on the act of creation.

Coming up with the perfect mix is quite a process. First of all, there’s qualifying a vendor. For him, qualifying a vendor is a major undertaking, and once one is secured, he sticks with them for a very, very long time. He looks for quality, consistency and reliability from a vendor. If a pigment is not consistent, then it requires tweaking each batch of paint to get a good result, which takes more time and can throw off production and delivery times for his product. Disappointing the stores that sell his paint is something he doesn’t want to do. Although he could save money with cheaper pigments from China or India, he feels that the quality and consistency just isn’t there. In fact, some pigments such as alizarin crimson cost him ten times the amount he could get elsewhere, but he feels that it is worth it to get the best.

Making Paint

One of the main differences between M. Graham & their competitors is the pigment load in their paint. “If I can find a way to put another 5 pounds of cadmium into a batch of paint, I’ll do it” says Art. Their oil and acrylic paint consist of only the pigment and the medium. That’s it. No fillers or other agents to save on costs.

The pigment and medium are weighed (accurate to 1/100th a pound), mixed, and milled. After milling, the paint is mixed again, which makes it more workable for the artist. Finally, the tubes or jars are filled, aged, boxed up and shipped.

Every pigment has its own color, tint strength, particle size, weight per gallon, and absorption of medium. The goal is to create a dispersion. That is, to surround every atomized granule of pigment with the medium, with no clumps. In the case of his oils, that medium is walnut oil. There are a number of ways to do this, but M. Graham paints uses a three roll mill, which through its shearing action, pulls apart the pigment clumps. Simply crushing the mixture will not work. Such action can change the properties and color of a paint. For example, crushing cobalt shatters its crystals, turning it from a brilliant blue to a dull gray.

There are three things to consider when coming up with a recipe for milling a color. Every color has its own pressure, number of mill passes and speed. It’s a trial and error process, a craft. Minor modifications will make a huge difference.

Acrylics

Although they are fully compatible with other acrylics, M. Graham acrylics feel different. I’m not sure I can describe this very well, but whereas other brands feel like you’re painting with plastic, his paint feels unique. The only way I can describe is “feeling the pigment as you paint”. It would also seem that the color has more depth than other paints. Finally, the type of acrylic medium he uses in his paint dries a lot harder and binds a lot better than other acrylics I’ve used.

Gouache

Although I don’t currently work in gouache, my friends who belong to the SCA do (you know, people who dress up in medieval garb and hold festivals). They absolutely love M. Graham’s gouache, not only because it’s the closest thing you can get to “period paint” (historically accurate ingredients) but also because it works so well. There are two unique things to note about this paint compared to other types of gouache. First of all, one of the ingredients is honey, which makes for smooth application. Second, unlike most gouaches that have fillers to make every color opaque, Art makes his paint opaque simply by loading it heavily with pigment. For some colors, this means that they are still transparent, but this gives the artist more options. If they desire opacity, the artist can mix paints to create this effect.

Oils

His oil paints are walnut oil based, and are compatible with linseed oil paints. This is the same type of oil the masters used, and does not yellow like linseed oil. (Linseed oil is a byproduct of the linen industry, so its use in artist paint is a little more modern). Walnut oil dries slower than linseed, which gives the artist more time to work the painting. If a faster dry time is desired, M Graham also provides a walnut alkyd medium. One added benefit of using walnut oil over linseed, is that brushes can be cleaned in walnut oil and soap rather than nasty solvents. This is better for the health of the artist, and better for the environment.

Safety & Environmental Responsibility

Speaking of safety, although his insurance provider won’t let him use the words “non toxic” or “edible”, M. Graham makes every effort to keep the toxicity of the pigments low. Most pigments are pharmaceutical, cosmetic or food grade. Their cadmium pigment is ground a little coarser than other companies. This provides a better texture to the paint, and a positive side effect is that it is considered biologically unavailable, and is not absorbed by the body’s fat cells. This not only is good for their clients, it’s important that he has a safe working environment for his employees and himself. Also, he buys locally when possible, to reduce the carbon footprint of his product (further distance equals longer shipping in trucks and boats that pollute the environment)

Wrapping it Up

I’d like to say that the only reason I visited M. Graham paints was to get leads on how to make my own paint from scratch. While Art was very helpful with tips on paint making, suggesting on books to read and things to try, that was just a paper thin excuse to visit him and the place that makes the paint I love so much. There are a scarce few people in this world who are truly passionate about what they do. Of those, even fewer are as idealistic, helpful and welcoming as Art Graham. If you’re an artist, he’s just fun and inspiring to be around. His paint is in the ever-shrinking class of products that are truly great, products that are the honest quality you expect. Martin Guitars, Craftsman wrenches (guaranteed forever, not just your lifetime), Flexcut carving tools. If you paint, you really should give them a try.

As it says on the entranceway, “Every artist deserves the finest color that can be created”.

New Name! Same Great Taste

2008-08-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve been telling myself for months that I need to get it together and combine my registrar and web host to one company, and to finally make use of a couple of domains that I registered over a year ago. It got to the point that I’ve promised myself a copy of Orange Box once I take care of all my web clutter. I finally did the first step last night, and now I’ve got four addresses pointing to this blog!
I’ve always wanted to call the project “Art From Scratch” but the .com version of the name was already taken (by Rachel… visit the site here ),
Now that the .net & .org versions have opened up I snatched ‘em as soon as I could!
It's shorter. It's easy to remember. I can write it down on a napkin a little faster!
So, you can get here from http://www.artfromscratch.net/ http://www.artfromscratch.org/

And even from these addresses:
http://www.paintfromscratch.com/ http://www.paintingfromscratch.com/

One of these days, I may actually make those addresses point to a page that has the blog as one tab of many. But that would require actual effort. Effort that could be spent on grinding more semiprecious rocks into pigment! So probably not anytime soon.

If you go in the woods today, you'd better go in disguise

2008-08-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

The family and I headed down to Veneta, Oregon, to attend the Oregon Country Fair recently. If you’ve never been, it could be best described as “Woodstock in an Ewok Forest” And thank God for the shade of the trees. That weekend was hot! Without them we would have been goners. Instead of staying at a hotel and taking a bus in each day, we decided to camp on some farmland near the fair with friends. A number of farms offer campsites, but we settled on Darling’s Reunion. This would have been a wonderful choice if I was single, in my 20s and didn’t need any sleep. Still, it was a great experience. And having camped at the Fair, Zumwalt park, and Darling’s, I can say that this is the best place to go for a great party. There were a number of vendors at Darling’s Reunion, and some of them had some nice gems for sale. The most prolific gem dealer there was form the Pink Bus. I picked up some Peacock Ore and will see if I can make it into pigment.

I also got two pieces of either turquoise or variscite from another vendor (kind of easy to mix-up).

There was also a really nice piece of malachite at another vendor’s table for a good price, but I was out of money, and there weren’t any ATMs nearby. *sigh* I might have to stick with copper and vinegar for green.

My Dealer was Back in Town...

2008-07-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

I got a flyer & a phone call from John Garsow, letting me know that the Gem show would be coming back to Seattle in June 27th-29. I took my daughter with me. What I didn’t realize was that it was the same date as Seattle’s Gay Pride parade & Festival, ending in the same location So, traffic was almost as bad as the parking, but she really enjoyed seeing all the people dance on such a hot day at the water fountain. She’s not even four, and she’s already been to a Democratic Caucus, the Oregon Country Fair & a gay pride festival. I think this is wonderful, but now I’m pretty sure this website will be flagged by some church group as a prime example of how the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Anyway, below are some pictures of things I picked up from John at the show. I know for certain that the blue rock is Azurite.

I think the white one is Brookite (which contains titanium oxide) or Barite and I *think* the green stone is Variscite. This is what happens when I bring my daughter places. I get distracted and end up buying things without getting the facts. I’ll add an addendum to this entry once I confirm the exact nature of these rocks.

Of course, the reason I’m getting all these rocks is to crush them and turn them into paint. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Next Entry on Monday, August 4th!

And now for Something Completely Different...

2008-07-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

I was able to procure the last batch of titanium sold at the now defunct Boeing Surplus store for Theodore Grey, (creator of the Periodic Table Table, and one who has talked to me at length via email about this project). This incredibly historic titanium unfortunately looked really bland in its original sheet metal form. After talking to him at some length about how to best identify titanium (see his January 2008 column here) I decided to spruce up one of the samples with my friend’s TIG welder. I really like how it discolors! Thank God he had an auto darkening helmet! I don’t think I could have written as well as I did otherwise.

I had a couple of pieces left over after this, so we decided to make an abstract sculpture. This was the first time I welded this metal, and used this session to just get a better feel for it. Since there was no titanium welding rod in his shop, I just had fun melting pieces into each other.

Next entry on Monday July 28th!

Improved Slurry Technique to Try

2008-06-01T22:55:00.000-07:00

My wife is into knitting, spinning, and all things fabric.
Guess who I'm going to enlist to help me make a canvas from scratch? :)

She was talking with Michael Cook online recently about my project, and he suggested another technique for refining earth pigments. Michael has a very cool project of his own going on. Check out www.wormspit.com

Anyway, here's the full text of his technique. I'm hoping to try this out in a couple of weeks:

I asked Alyssa if you were levigating the pigments - and I figured I'd
reply to you instead of making her play messenger!

What I was doing, was grinding the rocks (mostly yellow and red
ochres, but also malachite and some whitish chalks) to a fine powder -
starting with a hammer and a pillow case, and ending up with a
dedicated coffee grinder. I would put that into a jar with water, and
swirl it vigorously to mix. The liquor of color would be on top, and
the grit would quickly settle out. I poured the liquor of color off
into a shallow bowl, and let it dry, which made a fine, usually
grit-free powder. If the powder still felt gritty after levigating it
once, I repeated, and then mulled the resulting powder with water
using a glass muller and a glass plate, then let it dry for storage or
mix directly with binder. I did a little paint-sketching with them,
although it was all just samples and I didn't keep a completed
project.

Couple of things to think about for this project:

This technique might be a lot faster than me letting the particles settle down, then have the entire jar of mud dry. And, it should give me a more consistent and finer particle.

How do I make a glass muller (or any muller for that matter) from scratch? Maybe a clay/ceramic fired one with a good glaze? Or maybe an especially smooth & flat skipping stone?

If I implement both this technique & the use of a muller, I'm hoping to get a nearly commercial grade of pigment. I'll post the results as I try this out!

Cheers, and keep the suggestions coming!

Egil's Update

2008-05-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken by our 3 year old. Thanks for not dropping the camera!

Here's the spread of material I brought to share

Here's a shot of the Sunday class.

As I briefly mentioned, last weekend we were in Eugene at Egil’s, a SCA event. I had a great time sharing what I’ve learned so far with other attendees. I’ve already gotten an email from someone who has attended my class with some suggestions on things to try. Thanks!

Here’s some of the notes that people gave me to further my studies:

Books to read (they just happen to be *ahem* on my Amazon wishlist now)
The Craftsman Handbook by Cennio Cenni – translated by Daniel Thompson.
Also by Daniel Thompson: The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting.

Places to visit:
Glass Buttes in Central Oregon near Riley.
Apparently there is a lot of obsidian there of which I could make some good tools.

Niaux Cave in the Pyrenees

A note to visit the Newgrange Megalithic Passage Tomb in Ireland.

Egil's Part I

2008-05-26T23:07:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note, with more details to follow. My wife and I spent our Memorial Day weekend at Egil's 34, a SCA event (from their webpage: The SCA is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe).

I had the opportunity to 'teach' two classes on making pigment from scratch. It was really more of a chance to share what we all have learned about how our ancestors made pigment. I certainly learned a lot from everyone, and a good time was had by all! Photos and resource links will be posted shortly (tons of books and ideas were passed around). Thanks again to everyone who attended!

Two Pigment Tests in one day!

2008-04-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

I felt especially productive this weekend, and Ravenna wanted to hang out with me in the garage, so I tried two new pigment tests. Both additions have made it into the header. Hey, anyone out there know how to make this header an image map using Google's Blogger? I'd really love to have each color link to their respective entries!

Pristine

First up is what I *think* is called ‘Pristine’. I got it from John Garsow when I bought a bunch of Lapis Lazuli from him. We were hoping it would make an OK white. I think it is some sort of magnesium oxide, but I couldn’t find anything on the web about it recently. I’ll send an update if I do. In the meantime, please comment if you recognize this rock/stone/mineral/thing.

The rock looks fairly white, with possibly a little rust or dirt on the outside. The powder looks great. However, when I mixed it with walnut oil, I got a light and somewhat grey. I’m thinking the grey came from one of four possible sources.

The impurities in the rock

The impurities from my mixing board

A chemical reaction with the walnut oil (I can test this by trying this pigment out with a different medium)

Some sort of reaction with my palette knife metal (I can try something else to
mix the pigment & the medium together)

It’s not very opaque, so I think I’m going to keep looking for a better white (maybe go back to eggshells? I don’t know)

Jasper

Second up is some Jasper that I got on Saturday. I picked it up, along with a bunch of other gemstones from Scratchpatch. This is a place in Seattle that encourages you to come by, and sit in and examine a bunch of gemstones. You can then pick out the ones you like, and pay for them by the bag full. Ravenna and I went there, and we both got a medium bag of assorted rocks, for $8 a piece. It was really fun to take our shoes off and sit on a bunch of pretty tumbled rocks! I liked how they felt on my feet and legs. So next time you’re in Seattle, stop by there and try it out. Science, Art & More is about a block away, so make a day of it!

Jasper is mostly silica and impurities (in this case iron(III) ). It crushed fairly easily with pliers & a sledge hammer, and will probably crush well with a big rock, once I decide to make a production run (not using any modern tools)

I was a little worried that it wouldn’t mix with walnut oil very well, because of how it handled at first. It seemed to repel the oil. But once I started mixing it, it seemed to hold the oil fairly well. Sidenote: It’s amazing how each paint handles so completely differently from each other. I know my pigment particle sizes are really big compared to consumer paints, but it still never ceases to amaze me how different they behave and feel. This pigment is the reddest material that I’ve found so far, although my parent’s burnt soil comes close (not as pure of a red).

Deep Blue

2008-04-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

We're pretty much settled in, but the problem with any move is that your patterns and habits are disturbed. New patterns emerge and old ones wither away. Case in point; this project. It's taken me until tonight to simply grind some of the lapis lazuli that I bought back in March. But the results are very promising!

I took the tiny grains from the John Garsow purchase and put them into the mortar. Obviously, some of the stuff in there isn't lapis. I took out as many purities as I could before grinding. After making a somewhat coarse grind, I mixed it with walnut oil. It was too coarse to use with a brush, but it might work OK with a palette knife. (see left most sample)

So, I put the remainder of the pigment back in and ground it some more (maybe 3 more minutes) Sure enough, it works fine with a brush. (second to left). It is also a little duller. Art Graham told me cobalt can become grayer when the crystals are crushed too fine. I think a similar thing might be happening here with the lapis. The good news is I can choose the best grind for my painting application instead of relying on a paint maker to do that for me. The bad news is I doubt I'll ever have identical batches!

At any rate, the color is much more vibrant, deeper and darker than the Chilean lapis lazuli that I bought in Canada (right two samples)!

Birthday Blues

2008-03-11T23:56:00.001-07:00

More Blue Goodness

Today’s my official birthday! Last weekend, I had a party (see here for blue cake: )

Last Friday, I had even more blue goodness. I was able to take some comp time from work and go to a gem show. http://www.intergem.net/

I bought Lapis Lazuli from three vendors there. Now then, how should I handle money with this project? Most if not all Lapis comes from either Afghanistan or Chile. I doubt I’ll be going to either place in four years. Anyway, the prices are listed with each entry. As always, click on an image for an enlarged view

Here’s a the remaining samples I bought in Canada. It is from Chile. I wetted them so you can more accurately see their color.

Here’s the polished stones I bought from Gems Stones of Africa. They were $5, and as you can see, had a lot of calcite and other non-lapis in them. Still, they’re pretty. I think they also had better grades, but they were more money of course, and since I didn’t need polished rocks, I kept searching. http://www.gems-stones.com

Here’s the start of some either really large buttons, or very garish earrings. I bought these from C&C International for $6 a piece.

Finally, here’s a small number of the pound or so of rocks that I bought from John E Garsow for $70. He & his wife were the most helpful at the show. He had three grades to choose from. I was going to get the highest grade, but when I told him it was to crushed into paint, he told me that I could get some really nice but small stones in the 2nd & 3rd grade bins for much less. I spent about 20 minutes sorting out the best ones, and he threw in a couple more after weighing them (to offset the water & because I bought so many I’d guess). He even gave up his chair so I could spend the time needed sorting without hurting my back. I asked him if he had any other ideas for paint, and he though ‘pristine’ or some type of Magnesium oxide might make a good white. I bought $5 from him, and will post it if the results are good.

Next step, crush & add oil or egg yolk (for tempera paint)!

Looking forward to your opinions on how to deal with money for an art from scratch project. Offset it by doing community service @ minimum wage equivalents? Other ideas?

Daughter More Prolific than I

2008-02-25T00:14:00.001-08:00

It's midnight. The weekend was great, and it feels like spring is in the air again! We're done moving. I unpacked a lot of stuff in the garage and cleared a space for the art project to recommence. But so far, all I've really done is update the banner on my blog, which took waaaay too long, and I'm still not sure if I like the change(I lost my original file, and had to rebuild it *from scratch*, if you'll pardon the term.)

My Photoshop skills are really rusty. But my daughter's is growing! She's 2 3/4 and can pick out her own colors & draw with my Wacom tablet. It's amazing how good her stuff looks for her basically just scribbling. So in lieu of my work, here are two samples of hers.

Personal to Theo: I have your Titanium still, and promise I'll send it out soon, even if it's much more boring than the samples you already have (maybe I need to alter it first. Hmmm....)

Tandy Leather Visit

2008-01-09T21:49:00.000-08:00

We recently moved back to Seattle. On one of my move-in errands, I noticed a Tandy Leather Factory store, and had to drop in. A number of years ago, all the stores had closed down, but they are now back in business. I chatted a bit with the manager, and we talked about the trade for a bit. I inherited my grandfather's leather tools, and there is a bit of nostalgia going into these stores.

I'm going to need some sort of soft leather hide (or maybe really strong oiled paper??) if I want to make bellows for any tooling forge. According to the manger, Modern leather is prepared using modern chemicals, most of which were probably not available in 4004 BC. But they did have a book on brain tanning, entitled Deerskins Into Buckskins.

I picked up a copy since I was there (I'll have to start reading it soon). It looks like it got a great review on Amazon!

Looks like I'm getting closer to having to kill an animal for this project. I'm not really looking forward to it, but if I used every bit of the animal, then it would be less of a waste. Hide for bellows, hip joint for mortar & pestle, hair for brushes...

Maybe if I make the bow & arrows, and have my Dad shoot a deer, as he can get tags...

3 hours to the new year

2007-12-31T21:08:00.000-08:00

It's nine PM on the west coast, and we move back to the states tomorrow. I'm up in the hotel with a bit of a headache, waiting for the move to be over. Today I let in the cleaning crew into our old house, watched the Price is Right with Drew Carey & Beyond Planet of the Apes, came back & steam cleaned our old house's carpet, dropped off the cleaner, hit the driving range with my friends, got dinner at Boston Pizza, and waited for my daughter to go to sleep. I'll probably get to bed before midnight too.

What does this have to do with the art project? Not much, but the good news is once I'm back in my old house in the states, it will be easier to do things like make a kiln from scratch, fire pit, etc.

Happy new year!

Vinegar + Copper = different types of Green!

2007-12-28T23:50:00.000-08:00

I haven't added to this blog for waaay too long! The reason? I was laid off in late October, and was looking for a job for a little while. It was hard to justify playing with copper, bamboo, and crushed egg shells when I had to pay the bills. But, I found one (really looking forward to this new company!) and will be moving back to the states in a FEW FREAKING DAYS. I'm looking forward to being moved in, but I'm going to miss my Canadian friends, cheap golf & poutine.

I'm in the moving eye of the hurricane right now, with nearly everything in boxes, including the project. I have one new update: A vinegar/copper test matrix! So, if you've been following the entries, you'll see that I took a patina recipe online, and kept testing it to see what ingredients were actually needed. The original recipe was ammonia, salt & white vinegar. I found that anything with salt made the pigment too clumpy when mixed with walnut oil. Ammonia didn't really help much, and I think I read somewhere that Ammonia + copper = some type of carcinogenic substance (I'm probably wrong; I have NO chemistry background, and I was tired). It turned out that just white vinegar & copper made some really nice blue-green crystals, which mixed really well with walnut oil. (A horrible patina, but a great pigment).

Since white vinegar is not going to be as easy to make as apple vinegar, I decided to try a range of vinegars to see what I could get. I also tried balsamic vinegrette, but it just turned to muck.

The results: four different shades of green! I re-did the white vinegar, and the results are very similar (I have a comparison shot, but am too tired/is not enough room/am saving it for the coffee table book).

I'm guessing the impurities are causing the color changes. No matter, they all look great! (you'll notice on the red wine vinegar, I didn't scrape part of it off, that was because that was where most of the impurities settled)

Back to packing: I decided to clean the patinas that I tested before packing them up. There is an interesting orange/red under the thick green patina layer. I picked it up with some paper towels. I don't know if there is enough color to make a production run, but I just might continue experimenting with this in the months to follow.

Clay, with a side of Eggs

2007-10-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

Two pigments were refined this time! Blue clay and eggshells.

For the clay, I used the standard slurry method to settle out the larger particles.

It had been drying in my house for almost a month now, and would still be drying if it weren’t for the fact that I put it next to a heating vent (yeah, this is a proof of concept test to say the least)

Anyway, it actually makes a great dark grey!

In other news, I tried crushing the heck out of eggshells to see what I could some up with. I’ve been grinding them in my mortar and pestle for about a week now, and the particles are still too coarse.

I read a Google search excerpt from Pigment Compendium Set by Nicholas Eastaug, Valentine Walsh, Tracey Chaplin, and Ruth Siddall, (now on my wish list for those out there to those with way too much money on their hands)
It looks like that
a) eggshells were used in the past and were considered as good as lead white, and
b) there are other techniques I need to try to get finer particles.

So, I’ll try those ASAP and then post my results!

By the way, starting with this entry, this blog is have updates every other week entries for the next few months.

Enter the (Copper) Matrix

2007-10-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

I thought I had some really promising results with the copper tests I did using the salt, white vinegar & ammonia recipe, so I decided to do a test matrix to see what would work best. (No, it did not include Trinity as played by Carrie-Anne Moss but next time you're in your home town, feel free to drop by and say hi to me & the family), I just tried every ingredient combination.

I got a whole bunch of interesting results. Long story short: Salt seemed to make it hard to disperse in walnut oil (it was all clumpy)

My best result is to only use white vinegar. I also thought I had an incredible blue with an ammonia/white vinegar combo, but after I mixed it with walnut oil, it reacted and turned green.

One other thing, as noted on some of the close-ups, I had reactions between the tests. My guess was that the vinegar & ammonia vapors reacted in the air just above the copper & oxidized it.

So, one more thing to try with copper before moving on: I need to do a few more tests with different types of vinegar. This time I’ll keep the samples a little further apart.

Painting From Scratch: New Host, New Name

2007-10-01T23:37:00.000-07:00

Last night I updated this blog, so it is now hosted on the BlogSpot servers, and takes advantage of the neat, new and nifty layout features. Long story short: I don't have to do as much coding to get the features I want, and updating is a lot faster.

Why the name change? There's already an www.artfromscratch.com is already taken. So I registered www.paintingfromscratch.com and www.paintfromscratch.com. They may eventually become the main page for this project, with a link to this very blog. In the meantime, this is the place where all the action is taking place!

All the pictures are now hosted on Picassa. If you just want to look at the pretty pictures, they are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/troy.mcfarland

Cheers,
_TMC

Ultramarine Blue the Hard Way

2007-09-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve been pretty busy with the project this week. First off, I’ve got a spiffy new Project Status Banner at the top of my blog, for easy reference on how far I’ve come. Also, I’m drying out and prepping the green copper rust from last week (hopefully I’ll be able to make it into a pigment for next entry). The blue clay that I’ve refined is taking a VERY long time to dry. I don’t think it’ll make a good grey pigment, but I might as well run the experiment through its paces.

Lastly, I’ve finally gotten around to grinding and mixing the Lapis Lazuli that I picked up at Mountain Gems in Burnaby. The folks at Mountain Gems were very helpful and friendly. I called ahead before I showed up to see if they had any in stock. Not only did they have some, they also emailed me a link on how to prepare it for paint! Talk about great service.

For those not in the know, Lapis Lazuli is a type of rock that used to be made into a pigment for tempra and oils back in the day. When we discovered a way to make the Ultramarine Blue synthetically, its use as a pigment diminished. This is fine, because it’s a beautiful rock for many other purposes (carving, etc). Note to any stone sculptors and jewelers out there: If you’re doing any Lapis sculpture, please contact me so I can take the unusable chips off your hands! This stuff isn’t cheap!

Here’s the samples I bought, with one small piece already crushed. When crushing, it gives off a distinctive odor (which prompted me to put on my painter’s mask). It smells like a hair salon when someone’s getting a perm!

Here’s a sample of the pigment mixed with walnut oil. Note that it is a bit greyer and duller than the stone. That’s most likely due to one of two things: The impurities in the cheaper Chilean stone is diluting the color, or the act of crushing the stone is making it duller. Art Graham mentioned that this can happen to cobalt blue if you create a dispersion incorrectly. (see factory tour notes)

This final shot shows the difference between my first and second batch. The first batch looked really dull to me, and my guess was that my tools were not clean enough (the copper test rusted my palate knife. I thought I got all the rust off, but looks like I was wrong)

Copper, Now with Ammonia!

2007-09-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

After finally getting a hold of a bottle of Ammonia, I was able to try out the original, unaltered patina recipe. Here’s the recipe (courtesy the Urban Farmer Store) and my results:

2 cups White Vinegar
1 ½ cups Ammonia
½ cup kosher or sea salt (according to the recipe, more salt = more green, less salt = less green)

By the way, the vinegar and ammonia each had a powerful smell, but once this was all mixed together, the smell was not bad at all.

Day One: Cleaned and scoured out the copper post-topper, then filled with clear liquid.

That evening, the solution had turned a wonderful blue hue.

About 4 days later, here are the results, with still a little liquid at the bottom. As I put less salt into this batch, there are a lot less crystals.

Eight days after making the batch and it is dry. Note how the color at the bottom is more blue than the rest. This may be due to it getting rained on outside last night (I left it outside to dry out a little faster and forgot to bring it in).

I did a little research on how to make vinegar and ammonia from scratch.

Vinegar won’t be hard… I have a friend who has made a few bottles accidentally when home brewing. Ammonia will be a bit harder. Today it’s made using the Haber Process, which uses high pressure (200 atmospheres) and high temperatures (450 C) and an iron catalyst to get Nitrogen & Hydrogen to react and form Ammonia. There are some other historical ways to produce it, and I may try those (playing vegetable and animal waste products… joy.). My other substitute (see last entry) seemed to do a pretty good job, but it began to smell pretty bad towards the end of the experiment.

So, I’m going to do a matrix test of the four ingredients (salt, vinegar, ammonia, and ammonia substitute) to see if I can eliminate any one of them. Here’s my two test sheets:

Go Green!

2007-09-17T01:14:00.000-07:00

Right now I’m facing a catch-22 regarding my first production batch of pigment. I need to make some pots in which to refine my pigment more, but in order to do that I need a kiln. Although I have some clay to make bricks or pots, I don’t have anything to fire them in…

That and I don’t think my landlord would really appreciate me making a bonfire on his property to pull this off. This sort of thing needs done at my parent’s property.

So, in the meantime, I’m trying to expand my color palate. I’m about 1/3 of the way through tests for creating a copper green pigment. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I found a recipe for patina on the web, which consisted of only three ingredients: Sea/kosher salt, White Vinegar, and Ammonia. We had the salt and vinegar at home. Believe it or not, finding a cheap $3 bottle of Ammonia was *not* easy. I called or looked in over five stores before I found it in stock at Safeway. Why so scarce? My guess is that it’s a cheap ingredient used in the manufacture of meth, so people are either buying up all the stock, or stores are not selling it to attempt in vain to cut down on meth production. Come on everybody! Haven’t people figured out yet that speed kills? Now it delays art projects too.

So, while I was looking for ammonia, I tried a substitution for my first batch… one that would be easier to make from scratch too. Let’s just say that it’s a) it complies with my ‘from scratch’ rule set b) a liquid and c) I can currently manufacture more in a week than I’ll probably need for this entire project.

I also tried just using lemon juice for a second test, but it just resulted in making a green snot-like goo. When I added alcohol to it, it looked pretty bad.

Both batches on day 2 or so

Day 3 or so: Crystals began to form

Close up of crystals

Day 5, Had been left outside for a while, including a light mist of rain.

Icky green goo from dehydrated lemon juice. I couldn’t tell if the green color is from the copper or some nasty bacteria. So, I mixed it with alcohol to see if I could sterilize it and separate the pigment out.

Final bottled samples. Middle sample has settled since this photo and all pigment and salt is at the bottom.

Color #2: Lamp Black

2007-09-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

I was going to talk about the blue clay that I got from a coworker, or perhaps a list of all the things I can use now that my starting point is 4004 BC, but there’s a new development that is much cooler. Except for two tools and a paint brush, I just came up with a production batch of Lamp Black!

When I told my wife the difference between proof of concept tests and productions runs, she exclaimed “That means you have to do everything twice!”

Um, yea. At least twice. Usually it takes more tests before I can go into production. But this one was proven out on the first try and that means my next batch will be production ready!

Here’s what I did:

I couldn’t find my beeswax candles, but I did find some beeswax in my art supplies for Ukrainian Egg Decoration. Why beeswax? Humans have used it for at least 10,000 years (presuming of course that the earth existed for over 10,000 years. For the scope of this project, the world was created in 4004 BC, or about 6011 years). There is even evidence of it being used at Lascaux.

I created a wick from the retted flax that was donated by Wild Rose Fibres, and inserted it into the hole I made with a screwdriver (1st tool that was not from scratch)

After lighting the candle (wood fire is from scratch, as there is evidence of it being readily available to our ancestors in 4004 BC. So, I felt a wooden match was OK to use. Note that I didn’t use the bic lighter in the photo, as the end result was much the same), I held the copper over the flame, and collected the soot.

I tried to find raw copper sheeting to use as a smooth surface. No such luck at 6pm on a Saturday. But these post toppers at Home Depot did a wonderful job. One note: copper conducts heat *very* well. Watch your fingers!

After scraping the soot off with a palette knife (2nd tool not from scratch), I mixed it with walnut oil. Success! The end result is a very black, very smooth paint. Apparently this is the same pigment used for India Ink.

More on clay and other reasons why I bought copper post toppers next time.

Priceless Art

2007-09-07T00:29:00.000-07:00

Over Labo(u)r Day weekend we were in Tacoma, Washington meeting my parents halfway from Portland. They brought up my production batch of pigment. (See previous video entry where I make a fool of myself). As you can see, we kept such a valuable item in a ‘safe’ place.

When I brought it home, I went to work on it separating the coarse back from the finer silt front. As I had to do this ‘from scratch’ I used a broken piece of old bamboo, instead of a carving knife as I did with my proof of concept batch. Compare the level of impurities to the Proof of Concept photos. Looks like I’ll have to refine it at least one or two more times.

The good news is that a co-worker donated two 5 gallon buckets full of blue clay. Although it doesn’t look like this will be a good source of pigment just yet, I think I’ll be able to make some containers from it to enable me to do a much better refining job!

More on the clay next week.

Drawing a Line in the Dirt, or Fall of the House of Ussher

2007-08-26T23:57:00.000-07:00

A while back, I found what looked to be a cow magnet attached to a shopping cart. This confused me as I wouldn’t expect a cow magnet in the middle of a metropolitan area. My paranoia set in after a while, and I began to worry that it might be radioactive or unhealthy or something. (turns out it was part of a kid’s toy set of two magnets, that make noise when thrown up in the air together, so it’s probably safe as long as I keep it away from my credit cards)

While, trying to track down this particular cow magnet, I ran across a very interesting web page, made by Theodore Gray; the Periodic Table Table. It has photo examples of every element (those that one can take photos of anyway… Seaborgium, not so much) I couldn’t find a cow magnet, but I did find a photo of a metal ball
that I found in the streets of Seattle. His site explains the use of this odd looking pinball-sized sphere. How it ended up in a gutter in Queen Anne is beyond me.

Anyway, I mentioned my project to him, and we quickly struck up a conversation about it. He’s been very supportive, and held my feet to the fire on coming up with a clearly defined rule set. Here’s the email conversation:

Troy:
Perhaps the words 'naturally occurring' need to be looked at closer. They imply that humans are not part of the natural processes that takes place on earth, nor is anything we do. If you take a larger view of the world, and consider the human race to be part of nature, then our by-products are also an extension of nature. In this case aluminum powder is naturally found... in etch-a-sketches. Just like Plutonium can be naturally found, in breeder reactors.

Theodore:
Which is exactly the point I'm making in my description of those aluminum nodules. It's both arrogant and insecure of us to imply that anything we do is somehow fundamentally different from what chorals or algae do. If you were doing your project in Africa, would you be allowed to use savannah grasses? Because the savannah is grassland only because of human burning over hundreds of thousands of years.

I think the problem is where to draw the line, since by that argument, you could just go down to the store and buy anything you want.

You have to find a way to draw a bright line, no hedging or it's not art.

Here's one possibility: Assume there is a nuclear (or biological) war that wipes out the human race completely. You get to use anything that's still around a hundred million years from now. [let’s see, this conversation mentions breeder reactors & nuclear war… what are the chances that the NSA will be looking at my painting project more closely now?]

This eliminates all manufactured objects, everything made of iron, anything in a recognizable shape. But the aluminum nodules will still be washing up on the shores of the great lakes.

Troy:
I'm finding that I have to question everything, and I haven't been able to come up with a system that easily handles every situation. So right now, it feels like a wobbly line. I'm getting the feeling that maybe one system that would work is if I decide how many levels back or levels removed from my day job I'll go for any particular thing. Let me know what you think of this idea:

For almost everything I see in the world around me, it seems that at some level back, smelting & loom technology come into play. I've read somewhere that it is estimated that smelting has only been discovered independently 5 or 6 times. Amazing if true.

Theodore:
I guess the money aspect [buying material, like flax plants] doesn't bother me so much as what the materials are. As long as what you're paying for isn't processed in any non-trivial way, I don't see that the art is effected by whether you bought, borrowed, begged, scavenged, or stole it.

…You've got to have a headline, a soundbite, that is immediately understandable to explain why what you've done is interesting.

So, here's another random bright line you could try: Making a modern painting in 10,000BC.
Assume you, with all your modern knowledge and access to all the books and information resources you want, are dropped into the world in 10,000 BC and asked to produce a painting. (Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court kind of thing.) …

Troy:
This concept is beginning to resonate with me. Maybe some tweaking here and there, but very close to what seems right. Loved that book by the way.

We also talked about the coolness incarnate that is Boeing Surplus,
which turned out to be good timing for Theo, as he was planning a trip to Seattle right around the time we were talking.

He came back with some nice samples:
Boeing Contributions
Aluminum Samples

By the way, if you want to get yourself or a friend an engaging Periodic table poster, buy one from Theo. The placemat version has educational and witty text describing each element on the back.

ACTUAL STARTING POINT
So, Theo has tasked me to find a suitable starting point in time. Anything that existed on or before this date I can consider ‘From Scratch’. I did my research, and have found a very clear, if somewhat controversial date: the date of the earth’s creation! To the day! I needed to find a scholar that has been respected for quite some time, well over a hundred years. I found that in James Ussher (1581-1656) Anglican Archbishop of Armagh (Ireland).

Ussher deduced that the first day of Creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday October 23, 4004 BC. So, let’s make our starting point, October 31st, 4004 BC. This gives us a little slack, just in case James made a rounding error. Also, Halloween is an easy date to remember.

As much as I respect the (arduous) efforts and results of Archbishop Ussher, I also respect the findings of modern archeologists. I believe them when they say they’ve dated an object to be older than Oct 23, 4004 BC. How do I reconcile this? The easy way out is to say that the dating is wrong. This is a cop out, and I don’t cotton to this line of thinking, particularly since these dates have been made much more accurate with newer dating methodology. One could also argue that any artifacts older than this date (like tons of pottery, large buildings in Egypt, etc) were put there by the Creator to tempt the faith of archeologists, scientists, and ‘end-time’ society. Maybe. Not saying it didn’t happen (as there is no way to prove it wrong, and more to the point, I personally believe in a creator with an extreme sense of humor).

I’m taking the hard line of living with a paradox.

Next time, we’ll go into detail about what can and cannot be used for this art project.

Cavemen: Not So Wimpey

2007-08-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

I took some videos of my trip to Colton, Oregon last week, and have not one, but three clips to show you!

We’ve got some successes: a production run of refined pigment (my arms are still sore from this exercise!) & I found a new color source (burnt soil is much more red).

Also a couple of minor setbacks: The flax isn’t growing as well as I had hoped, and not only is it hard to remove soot from a stone, but grinding up charcoal doesn’t make for a good paint pigment (too coarse).

It’ll all make sense when you take a look at the photos and videos.

Woeful Flax

Attempt at Getting Soot

Burnt Soil Find

Refined Pigment Production Run

Here’s the dried silt from the refinement production run. Not bad for just using a rock, a stick and some water!

Here’s a Proof of concept shot of all three pigments: Soil, charcoal & burnt soil.

In Colton, Making Paint

2007-08-12T23:04:00.000-07:00

I’m typing this up right now in Microsoft Works on my Mom’s computer in Colton, OR. My dad stoked the firepit, and I put a stone on top of the fire. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to see if there is a sizable amount of soot on the stone for me to take back to Vancouver.

Also tomorrow, I’m planning on making a production batch of paint, by digging a hole with a stone, adding water & stirring to get the silt to rise to the top. We’ll see how it goes.

While I was walking around the property, I saw some *really* red soil. My dad said that was a spot where he burned stuff before. My guess is that the heat oxidized more of the iron. I’m going to take a few samples back with me.

Pictures or maybe some video later, when I get back up to Vancouver!

Yet Still More Pigment Tests

2007-08-06T23:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve been working on a couple of processes to refine the red-clay pigment even further. The first and most obvious one is to re-slurry already refined pigment. Make sure to click on the thumbnails below for larger images.

Double Slurry results
In a nutshell, take refined pigment, and run the same process on it again (crush, mix with water, shake, let settle & dry, only take the top part that contains finer particles)

It’s smoother, and handles very similar to low-grade commercial paint. It’s still grainier than commercial paint, but totally acceptable for this project. I had to use a mortar & pestle to recrush it after it dried and I worked it longer with the oil than the single slurry batch. This stuff is ready for prime time.

Watercolor
I simply took the dried pigment chips and massaged them with a wet brush until it was loaded with pigment. Single or double slurry works fine for this, and although I could add something to the paint so it wouldn’t break down into mud and crack when it dries. Here are my results.

On this Birthday gift-card for my wife it reads “United States of Canada”. If you’re from America read it as “We’ll be incorporating Canada into our wonderful and fun-loving country soon, and by-golly they’ll thank us for it” If you’re from Canada read it as “Washington, Oregon & California will come to their senses and decide to merge with British Columbia” Thank you. Everyone happy & non-offended? Good.

Metal Removal Results
I found a magnet on a shopping cart a month or so back, and have been collecting the high-metal content soil and separating it out from the rest. I’ve since tried to remove all the dirt and see what kind of metal particles would be left.

Here’s the Process:
Drag magnet (in ziplock bag) through dried crushed dirt
Remove from bag & let dirt drop into a container
Repeat many times per batch of dirt
Mix metallic dirt with water
Put magnet/ziplock combo into slurry & remove into another can.

Repeat process

Take wet metal particles & put into mortar & crush w/ pestle

Repeat process with magnet

Add water, shake & let settle
Top layer is mostly red (Fe₂O₃ or ‘red rust’ I’d guess)
Bottom layer is mostly black (Fe₃O₄ i.e. magnetite)

It’s still too grainy to use at this point, but I’m going to see what I can do with it to make it into pigment. Still, it’s pretty cool that I can take soil & separate it out into a dark tan, an almost red and a nearly black. There is NO way I would use this technique to get enough ore to smelt into iron. This just takes too long. Besides, Theodore Gray, co-founder of Wolfram Research Inc, makers of Mathmatica and creator of the Wooden Periodic Table Table, has listed a much better source for this (From Thermite Steel Entry):

The fun thing about magnetite is that you can find it lying around any beaches in many parts of the country. I collected about 40 pounds on Ocean Beach in San Francisco, in less than half an hour using a large magnet.

½ hour = 40 pounds huh? And it only took about 10 for me to get a thimble’s worth!

By the way, I’ve been talking over email with Theo about this project. He has been incredibly helpful and inspiring, and has held my feet to the fire on making sure I will clearly define the term “From Scratch”. I’m going to compile our email conversation in an upcoming entry. (You can also thank/blame him for my next camera purchase)

So, enough tests for pigment! I’m going to be doing an actual “From Scratch” production run very soon! No more plastic or glass jars for me!

Art From Scratch Listmania Now on Amazon.com

2007-07-30T00:26:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note this week: Rather than spend the last hour hammering out a new entry for this blog (about the new pigment experimentation I’ve been doing), I created a Listmania entry on Amazon about the books that I’ve been referencing for this project. Please check out “Books to Build a Civilization from Scratch (or at least a painting)”

More on pigments next week. (#^$&@ addictive time-sucking internet!)

Bamboo

2007-07-23T00:02:00.000-07:00

Bamboo grows really well in this region and can be used for a ton of stuff: quill-like pens, scaffolding, flutes, bike frames, mills, and practically anything made on Gilligan’s island.

A quick search on Google has netted a bunch of really great photos of bamboo scaffolding, which is a testament to the strength of the bamboo & the incredible skill of the people who put it together and work on the scaffolds.

I’m hoping to make a loom, pens, brush handles, and other items with it. (‘bamboo loom’ generates some good Google results too). My manager just moved into a house, and had a bunch of it growing on his property. As he wants to landscape, he offered to let me have at taking as much as I wanted. Using only a hatchet and my hands (which if I ever use his bamboo, I’ll justify this by forging my own hatchet of similar size and quality), I chopped and pulled it out of the earth. I spent about ½ hour to get there, ½ of work, ½ hour back, another hour trimming it, and a bunch of time researching proper drying techniques before giving up and just letting it stand vertically outside my house.

After all of this, Ravenna and I went for a walk around the neighborhood, and in our alley, found a huge bundle of bamboo (a straighter, lighter variety) on top of a neighbor’s garbage can. Needless to say, I picked up a bunch of it too. I consider this FAIR GAME for my project as A) it grew naturally in my neighborhood, B) I personally didn’t use any modern tools to cut it, so hey, my neighbor *could* have hacked at it with a really sharp rock and C) I’m not going to look a cosmic gift horse in the mouth.

Now the only thing I have to worry about in the drying process is keeping it from the cats, as they are drawn to it like catnip.

I don’t have any twine available right now, so I’m just holding onto the bamboo until I can find a decent binder for it. That’ll buy me some time to track down some good loom plans to try out.

Next: Pigment update on Watercolor and refined oil color.

One pigment I won't use...

2007-07-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post this weekend, unfortunately. I discovered a painful but abundant way to create a new pigment completely from scratch. Let's just say that although the ochre color is consistent and was plentiful for me this weekend, I don't think anyone would have been able to handle the odor.

Hope to be feeling better next week,
Troy

Llamas Get Skittish Around Shears

2007-07-09T00:13:00.000-07:00

On May 12th, Alyssa, Ravenna and I went to Fibrefest International 2007 convention, in peaceful Abbotsford, BC.

Besides learning that I’m allergic to llamas and /or alpacas (which were in abundance), I also had a chance to speak to people at two booths which directly relate to this art project.

The first booth was the Peace Arch Weavers and Spinners Guild. They let me try my hand at one of their looms. Quick lesson here: Weaving by hand is very, very time consuming! But it’s also fun. I talked to them about appropriate material for creating a painting canvas. They were all in agreement that flax (linen) would be the way to go for canvas material, as wool and other animal fur won’t hold the paint as well. The downside to weaving linen, however, is that it has very little stretch compared to other fibers. This means that it’s easier to make errors, creating an irregular canvas surface.

After I told them about my project, they thought idea of one person doing everything from scratch was unprecedented historically. They said that one thing that bound society together was the interdependence of people. In the past, one person would grow the flax, have another rett the flax, another spin it into thread and yarn, and someone else to weave it into canvas. Specializing makes for better products. More importantly to them, specializing helped foster community, as everyone depended on one another for survival. They thought that it would make more sense to barter for goods and services if I wanted to replicate how things used to be done. They have a very valid point, and although I am still planning on doing most of the steps on my own, I think it might be OK to get help from others (someone to man the bellows during smelting?), barter services or goods (I’ll have some nice apples and plums soon, and could barter them for other from scratch items). Besides, my family is already watering my flax for me. For what it’s worth, Dale Chihuly has a whole team of artists who work with him to create his vision: (wiki entry)
And Damien Hirst just hires people to do his art for him. OK, I think that’s going just a little too far.

The second booth I visited was Wild Rose Fibres
Colleen Hovey is the owner, and gave me an impromptu lesson on how to use a drop spindle, to spin fiber into thread. She sells a wide variety of fibres and is a dealer for Kromski Spinning Wheels, shipping throughout Canada and the United States. I was planning on buying some flax from her to learn how to spin fiber as a proof-of-concept for the flax that is growing at my parent’s house. But when I told her about my project, she donated 50 grams to the cause! So, if you are thinking about spinning your own yarn, please visit her website!

I’ll be giving an update on my spinning & weaving results in the coming months. Coming up next, Bamboo gathering. It worked for the Skipper & Gilligan, so why not me?

Squaxin Island Tribe Museum Visit

2007-07-02T00:49:00.000-07:00

On our way back from Portland (in April… maybe I should start posting twice weekly), we visited the Squaxin Island Tribe Museum Library and Research Center in Shelton, Washington. Driving north on Hwy 101, the road crisscrosses through many tribal reservations.

Although they are considered separate nations from the US, you don’t have to deal with the border crossing wait as you would coming into Canada. (For more basic information on tribal reservations, wikipedia has a good starting point: Tribal Reservations)

At the Museum, I met Charlene Krise, executive director of the museum. When I asked her about traditional paint making techniques, she had a couple of suggestions. The first suggestions was to try baking or firing my parent’s red clay dirt to get even darker colors. Looks like this might expand my palate, and also make for a lot of experiments!

She also mentioned that a number of tribal artists used to use chum (salmon) eggs as the basis of their paint medium. These eggs have a very high oil content. (I think I’ll stick with walnut oil, at least for now).

I spoke with her brother George, one of the artists featured at the museum, and asked him what kind of paint he used on his cedar sculptures. He uses acrylic. To him, it’s the act of creation that is important. He doesn’t feel that native art is any less authentic if modern paints or tools are used. He still has an intimate connection to his art, and it was just as moving to me. As photos were not permitted inside the museum, I encourage you to visit or take a look at their website.
http://www.squaxinisland.org/
http://www.squaxinislandmuseum.org/

Canvassing for Linen

2007-06-24T23:30:00.000-07:00

Since hemp is not legal to grow in the states and Canada, (although you wouldn’t be able to tell up here), and I don’t want to blatantly break the law on this project (why risk deportation from the Great White North?), I decided to grow flax to convert into linen. I could also use the seeds for linseed oil, but 1), seed and fibers are harvested at different times and 2) I’m hooked on using walnut oil ever since I started using M. Graham paints several years ago. It smells better and my brushes clean up nicely with only walnut oil & soap, saving me the effort of creating turpentine from scratch.

When I was in Colton, I visited K’s Nursery, bought three flax plants for a total of $6, and a bag of potting soil for $2.00. Very helpful and friendly people. Unlike other Nurseries in the region, they sell a lot more than just Christmas tree saplings.
They don’t have a website but follow the link for their contact info.
http://www.specialtynursery.org/members/

Here’s two shots of the plants in April:

I planted them at my parent’s property. Here’s a shot of their condition as of today (thanks sis!). They were moved a bit to make way for a walkway to my parent's new house (thus the different background). My plan for these three plants is to let one be harvested for fiber (for a proof of concept test), and the other two for seed. If I’m lucky, I’ll have enough flax from the seed to make a canvas.

Coming up: My visit to the Squaxin Island Native American Museum, and Fibrefest International 2007

We Have Paint! (One color anyway)

2007-06-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

When I got back to Vancouver, I did a number of things to my parent’s soil to turn it into paint-ready pigment. (This is just proof of concept, so ignore the modern tools like plastic bowls, sledgehammers, knives, etc)

Sift: This was to remove really large particles.

Slurry: Make mud and let it settle to let the coarse heavy particles settle at the bottom, and finest particles separate to the top.

Drain: Duct tape, it works for everything!

Dry: My own dried out mud puddle. Cool cracks, huh? Looks like almost all the breaks are three lines from a single point.

Separate: Found it was easiest to use a carving knife. The coarse particles came right off, and the silt was harder, and actually carved pretty well. Too bad it’s so fragile, or I could sculpt with it.

Crush: I didn’t use a mortar and pestle this time, but will on my next test batch.

Mix with oil: Used M. Graham Walnut oil, and mixed it with a palate knife for about a half hour or so.

Final paint: Not too bad considering I made it from my parent’s front yard dirt! It’s still a little coarse, as it has the consistency of chocolate icing. I’m going to do a slurry on the fine pigment to see if I can get better results. Still, better than ketchup.

Other ideas with this soil;

I ran magnet I found on a shopping cart (cow magnet being marketed as a kid’s toy) through the pre sifted stuff, and it picked up iron particles! I’m going to try to isolate these, and rust them (maybe keep in water for a while?) to get an iron oxide powder for a really deep red.

Firing the silt may create darker colors. I’ll have to try this sometime too.

Next post: Details on how the canvas is coming.

M. Graham Factory Tour

2007-06-09T23:39:00.000-07:00

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve taken the trip to my parent’s new place in Colton, OR, but I’ve finally been able to catch up with enough things to get back to documenting this project. The most exciting part was when Alyssa and I met Art Graham, owner of M. Graham paints. In addition to some invaluable tips that he had for my project, he also showed me how they made paint, and as luck would have it, they were making my favorite oil color when we visited; Ultramarine Blue.

If you would like to learn more about the best paints I’ve ever used, I’ve devoted an entire page to the visit.

Here are some things I’ll try based off of his advice:

Earth Tone Pigments
Many earth tone pigments are literally that: they come from dirt. Now, the pigments that any professional paint maker would use are going to be a lot more refined and have a much, much higher level of quality control and consistency than I’ll be able to come up with, but it is reassuring to know that I can actually use that beautiful red-clay color from my parent’s property in my work. The suggested way to do this is to filter the earth and remove any inconsistent particles, then crush it repeatedly. Afterwards, mix it with water and let it settle. The finest particles will settle at the top. Skim these off, and repeat the process. When done, I should have a substance about as fine as talcum powder, which can be mixed with the medium.

Black & White Pigments: Am I Willing to Kill an Animal for this Project?
Art mentioned that I might want to try pulverized chicken bones for white pigment. Apparently, the earliest tempura paints were made from egg yolk and ground chicken bones. Also, if I can burn the bones properly, I may also be able to get a really good black from them, too. This brings up a question that I’ve been wrestling with for a while on this project: am I willing to kill an animal for art? I think it will be a lot more justifiable if the rest of the animal is used too, but except for slugs, spiders, flies, mice and a few very unfortunate barnacles, I can’t say that I’ve ever killed anything. It’s funny how something that our race used to do to survive now brings with it such a moral dilemma. I’m going to experiment first on bones from leftovers. That at least delays my decision on black & white tones for a few more weeks.

Walnut Oil Medium
For walnut oil, I could do what Leonardo Da Vinci did: boil the walnuts and skim off the oil.

Green Pigment
Oxidized copper. I’ll see if I can find any copper ore on or near my parent’s place. If it’s off the property, I’ll have to see if someone is willing to trade it for labor, or perhaps something I’m already growing.

Pay Dirt!

2007-06-04T00:10:00.000-07:00

For Easter, we visited my family, who had just moved into their new property (40 acres near Oregon City). Most of the property’s soil is a deep red clay. This soil is what reignited the idea of this art project in my mind. I thought that it might make a nice pigment.

As luck would have it, when we visited, my sister’s foundation on her new house was being installed (my sister, her husband and kids live on the same property), and there was a huge mound of dirt from which I took samples.
While I was there, I was able to do a couple of tests on the soil. As I didn’t have time to finish them, I smuggled some back to Canada with me.

But, I was able to create a slurry (i.e. mud) and let the contents settle. There turned out to be a fair amount of silt on this particular sample. The idea is to use the silt as a pigment.
More on this soil and my results up in Canada on the next post!

Scope of Project: What the Heck Was I Thinking?

2007-05-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

After talking with a lot of people and looking deeper into each process, I’m beginning to narrow the scope of this project. Here’s what I’ve got so far (subject to change, but trying to keep it as pure as possible):

Documentation:

Documentation is considered outside of the core art project. I simply don’t have time to make a computer, digital camera or camcorder from scratch!! I’ll barley have time to make the painting and all the tools that lead up to the painting.

Information Gathering:

I can use any means to gather information. There’s experimentation, talking with subject matter experts, books and the internet. I know I’ll enjoy experimentation and talking with experts most, and I’m going to try to lean towards those whenever I can. I’m not trying to go through every stage of human technological development on my own with no help. That would take well over the rest of my life!

Proof of Concept:

To make best use of my time, tests can use modern equipment. If the test result works with modern equipment, I will then do the same technique from scratch to arrive at similar results. Examples: using a mortar and pestle to crush soil into a fine powder (perhaps later done with a hip joint from a deer or maybe two stones) glass jars and bowls to mix materials. It looks like I might have to get into pottery before this project is over. Finding fire able clay will be a challenge…

Location of Raw Goods

I’m going to try to make everything from my local environment, primarily from the property where I live, and my parent’s property in Oregon. For items unavailable in either location, the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia) will be my maximum area to find the items.

Bartering

For items that I cannot create from scratch within five years, it’s OK for me to barter goods or services with others in my community. A good example would be walnuts. It would take me longer than five years to grow a walnut tree and be able to harvest its walnuts.

However, I could barter what is growing on my property now for walnuts. I’ll have plenty of apples and plums come mid summer.

Metal

Smelting is a major technological advance that we’ve made as a race. Primitive smelting is also very hazardous, as the process releases arsenic and other poisons into the air. I’m not going to pollute my parent’s property, or poison my family for this art project, so I won’t do any smelting. So, I’ll try to barter for scrap metal that I’ll rework into tools, loom parts, nails, wire, etc…

Community Involvement
Right now, I’m growing flax on my parent’s property. It’s not like I drive down there every few days to water it. Some processes are going to take many hands to build (like if I decide to make my own kiln, or create my own blacksmithing shop) So, some parts of the project are going to be community based, but I’m still going to try to do as much as possible on my own. As my wife keeps saying “You’re really trying to find the hardest way to do this aren’t you?” My reply: “Well, yes, otherwise what would be the point?”

Quick Update

2007-05-21T00:19:00.000-07:00

I've been back from the visit to my parent's new property for a while, and have a whole lot to talk about! So much, in fact, that it's a lot more than one entry. So, for at least the next couple of months, expect a new blog posting weekly by Sunday night. In the meantime, I'll tide you over with links to places that I've visited that directly relate to this project.

K's Nursery
M Graham Paints
Squaxin Island Tribe Museum, Library and Research Center
Fibrefest International 2007 Convention
Wild Rose Fibres

More on each of these places later!

What's For Dinner?

2007-04-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

Check out this transfer! I think it looks like a gopher with a peanut in his mouth. Alyssa thinks it looks like a deep sea fish with glowing lure thingy in front of his head. It was made by putting typing paper onto Alyssa’s finished plate of beets and balsamic vinaigrette. Not exactly 100% part of the art project, but thought it was worth a post.

First Pigment Test

2007-03-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

I really, really need to get in touch with local First Nations (Canada) and Native American tribes (US) in the Vancouver and Multnomah areas. Not only do they have a huge depth of knowledge and experience in creating pigments and art, they’ve been doing it for generations using things that occur naturally in the area I’m doing my work.

In the meantime, I’ve tried a few things on my own. Lightfastness is an issue (how resistant paint is to fading over time). I may decide that a few years will be sufficient if I want an expanded palate, otherwise I’ll probably be restricted to earth tones.

By the way, I used M. Graham walnut oil in these tests, which worked out really well. I may end up planting my own walnut tree for the medium!

Leftmost: this is soil I collected from my shoes from a recent visit to my parent’s land. This is the red clay that I hope will be usable as a pigment. However, it got mixed with dust and soil from my basement. Its consistency looks like poo. I got a better collection from Alyssa’s shoes on the right, and it looks a little better. I need to think about how to strain out impurities for more consistency.

Sawdust: This dust collected from the sanding of the wood blocks I made for Ravenna. It’s Tupelo, a nearly white wood. Not only does it not grow lpcally, it makes a terrible pigment. The only use I could see for this would be as a paint extender and drying retarder. It took about a month to dry, compared to a few days for everything else.

Blueberry Pie Juice: Alyssa was cooking, and I stole some of the pie juice! It’s pretty much sugar and blueberries. It worked out pretty well, when used without walnut oil. Only concern here is fading over time.

Beet Juice: This also worked out pretty well, but did not blend at all with oil. Probably that whole “water & oil does not mix” thing. There may be other ways for me to get this color in oil. Beet powder perhaps.

Turmeric: Looks like baby poo. If I can strain out the particles, I may get a decent result.

Rosemary & Cinnamon: Not worth the effort.

OK, back to the drawing board!

Peanut Butter!

2007-03-10T00:17:00.000-08:00

So, I’ve had this idea kicking around in my brain since early college, but have been putting it off until now. It came from a discussion an economics teacher had with us; what’s does it take to make a jar of peanut butter?

OK, when you go to the store, and plunk down under $4 for a jar of peanut butter, you really don’t think much about it. It’s pretty much like anything else you pay for. It’s easy to find, and pretty much looks and tastes the same as the last time you got it (you know, homogenous). Let’s keep this simple and presume we’re talking about all natural peanut butter (my favorite is Adams. I’m not getting any sponsorship for this project yet, but if I did, it should be from Smucker’s Inc. My motto: “You can’t sell out if you’ve never bought in!” Now where’s my free jar of Adams?)

Anyway, let’s figure out where all the stuff that makes up a jar of peanut butter comes from:

COMPONENT PARTS OF A JAR OF PEANUT BUTTER
Peanuts:
From farms, mostly in the South East region of the US. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina. I just found out on the internet that unlike other nuts, this one is not grown on trees. It comes from a little plant that has flowers on it. Cute.

Jar: Ok, obviously it’s mostly glass, but that’s not all.

Label: It’s got a sticky side, a paper-like substance and ink.

Lid: Metal, a rubber inner seal, some sort of anodized coating on the inside, Paint on the outside, with a lovely logo (some sort of offset printing technique, I’m guessing)

That’s about as far as the discussion went in class. But thinking about it, I realized it didn’t stop there:

Not including all the transportation to get all these items into the peanut butter factory and then onto the shelves of your local store, we’ve covered the basics of the component parts. So, how do you make each part?

ONE STEP BACK

Peanuts: Grown

Water irrigation

Soil , fertilizers and/or pesticides often used (natural or otherwise). Soil maintenance, (tiling, cover crops in the winter, all sorts of things)

Harvest, via manual labor or big huge gas powered machines.

Glass: Made from silicon dioxide (sand) and other materials at a high heat in a big industrial factory.

Glue: gelatin (from horse hooves or synthetic sources)

Paper: Trees, hemp (outside of the US anyway), or other things that you can get cellulose out of.

Ink: All sorts of recipes, but dye based inks include solvents. Oh boy.

Metal: Smelted from ore, or recycled from other metal products, again, in huge industrial factories that I tend to drive by on the highways, but never actually get to visit. (I’d love to tour these places)

Paint: Binder, Dilutant, and additives. Binders can be anything from natural oils to epoxies. Dilutants include water, alcohols, ketones, and petroleum distillates. Additives include pigments or dyes as well as thickeners, stabilizers, etc.

TWO STEPS BACK

Hey, this project is about making a painting from scratch, not peanut butter! But, you could say building those tools (tractors, factories, logging trucks, etc) would be a step back. If you keep going back far enough, I believe that nearly everything we do these days derives back to smelting ore, harnessing oil (into fuel, plastics, etc), and creating fabric. No wonder oil companies are so rich! Of course, this does worry me about what’s going to happen we’ll eventually run out of oil…

BACK TO THE PAINTING

So, one idea behind this project is to connect all the processes that are behind a finished item that we take for granted, and consciously realize them. What does it take to truly be independent? What is the best art I can produce when I do everything myself? Actually, scratch that, I don’t think I will be able to do everything myself. I’m planning on restricting the bulk of the materials to come from a small geographical location. Specifically, my parent’s new property. They are in the process right now of moving to 38 acres outside of Oregon City. It’s mostly forested, and has a red clay soil, which I heard things do not grow very well from. Since I’m up in Vancouver BC, I’ll have to do a bit of delegation on some (OK, a LOT) of the things to get this project rolling.

Anyway, my project has to be at least two steps back, most likely more. I’ve already decided that I won’t be smelting my own metal, because

1) It’s very likely that my parent’s land won’t have the necessary ore to smelt copper & tin (to make bronze) and

2) old-school smelting releases all sorts of nasty chemicals, like arsenic, into the environment, and I don’t want to mess up my parent’s property (at least, not that much)

So, I think one acceptable work around would be to grow something, or do something in exchange for some scrap metal, from which I could build my own tools. Any thoughts on this? Please comment on what would be a good starting point!