The first earth pigment journey.

The last two weeks Karma and I was on a vacation to the cape. We had an extraordinary time with friends and family. We spent days in nature between the majestic mountains and the picturesque beaches. The Cape have a lot to offer, but what we got there came directly from the surface of the earth. It's something that the everyday person would easily walk over without even knowing that it exists, the vibrant earth pigments. We got the most beautiful reds, yellows and whites. 

The view from one of the mountains.

Vibrant colours are everywhere, in this photo there are red, yellow and white.

Because natural blue pigment is very rare we are going to make an alternative plan for that. Some of the beaches have a very fine shell sand that we plan to use for making Egyptian blue pigment. Egyptian blue is a very old, almost forgotten, synthetic pigment. To make Egyptian blue we need a copper compound, Calcium Carbonate (from the shells) and silica sand. When everything is mixed together and fired at 800 -1000 degrees Celsius the final formula for our blue should look something like this: 2 CaCuSi₄O₁₀ 

We used the train to get wherever we needed to go.

The day we left to Cape Town we left with food for the road. When we came back we returned with a wide range of rocks and photographs of our adventure. Everything is still in its raw phase and is waiting to be processed into beautiful paintings depicting the majestic, monumental and rugged landscapes that the Cape have to offer. 

Another beautiful view. This was photographed somewhere between Cape-Town and Onrus.

Our final labeled collection of rocks and sand. Photographed in Onrus where we spend the second half of our vacation.

Some of the pigment in the rocks is so strong that is smudges effortlessly right onto your hand.

For now its back to the studio and back to work. I want to thank everyone that accommodated me and Karma during our time away! I wish everyone a happy new year!