Burning Earths For Colour With Lucy Mayes
Talk, Demonstration and Q&A With Lucy Mayes
Tuesday 22nd April 4-6pm
Delve deeper into making calcined earths in this session, building on the insights shared in Lucy's talk, Fundamentals: Binders and Pigments. Explore an array of recipes for crafting a diverse spectrum of iron oxide pigments, drawn from various raw source materials, and uncover their vibrant possibilities. She will discuss the chemistry behind the calcining process and explore how heat influences the properties of pigments. By understanding these effects, makers can refine their pigment production to suit specific applications and achieve tailored results.
Lucy will also provide a live demonstration of the calcining process, bringing the transformation of earth pigments to life.
You can join live or watch the recording. The recording will be available for three months after the live event. PDF handout included.
Want to watch Lucy’s Talk: ‘Fundamentals: Binders and Pigments’ that took place on the 12th November 2024? When you sign up, you can opt in to add access to a recording of this talk.
Art Materials Fundamentals, Binders and Pigments With Lucy Mayes
Tuesday 12th November (Two Hours)
(When you sign up, you can opt in to add access to a recording of this talk.)
We know that pigment making is a moving, working body of knowledge that has an untold amount of connections and crossovers with a multitude of different disciplines. As artists we amass huge amounts of specialist knowledge and process this through our unique lenses to create emotive experiences. I believe that knowing your materials intimately can create more interesting art and much needed empathy with our more than human counterparts. Join me for this session to expound and explain fascinating goings-on in our hand made art materials.
Have you wondered what is really happening when paint dries? and why do some paints dry faster than others? Do you ponder over why your hand-made botanical inks create unusual granulating effects? What minerals and impurities could be in your earth pigments - and organisms!? How urine can create a multitude of different pigments? In this session Lucy will explore what is physically and chemically happening to our art materials as we use them. Using examples from her research she will deliver useful information about pigment particle morphology, what makes a binding medium work, historical examples and modern replacements & technologies. For the past 10 years Lucy has gleaned useful and enlightening material from diverse sources & and she hopes to share them with you.
This session will equip participants with useful knowledge & understanding relating to the experiences they might have whilst using hand-made pigments, paints and inks. It will aid creatives with a technical vocabulary in order to explain and present what is happening chemically and physically to their art materials as they use them to bring about deeper understanding of their work. This 2 hour session is by no means a complete breakdown of the fundamentals of pigments and binders ( which would be several life's work!) but serves to communicate comprehensive examinations of material transformations through the use of examples Lucy has personally worked with or experienced. The session is designed to inspire others to think deeper about their own worlds of colour and paint.
Supporting Facilitator: Caroline Ross
About Lucy Mayes
Lucy Mayes is an artist and pigment maker & researcher working in London and Hampshire. Her work as ‘London Pigment’ uses urban waste stream materials to make recycled pigment. Her practice is centred on the use of unusual, surprising or esoteric raw materials to make colour as a way of documenting events or ‘happenings’. Verdigris made from copper wire stripped from burnt-out mopeds, soot and ash from park fires and construction rubble have all been used in her work to make new pigments. Her colour-making practice centres on creating sustainable pigments from anthropocene waste streams. She works in the capacity of pigment/colour consultant and has worked with Neptune Interiors Ltd, Jaguar Land Rover, Royal Cornwall Museum, V&A, Kew Gardens on pigment projects. She previously worked as product developer and pigment specialist at renowned colourman L.Cornelissen & Son where she developed their historical pigment archive. She teaches pigment making at institutions nationally and hopes to re-orientate our connections to colour; through the creation of intimate relationships with matter formed through embodied making.orld.
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