Verdigris

It’s been a really enjoyable Christmas vacation. We have watched movies, played board games and ate way too much. I also have had time to progress on the painting.

To get ready for the later stages I have started some verdigris pigment for the paintings background. Thank you Margeurite for the push. Verdigris is a pigment that is created when copper is exposed to the fumes from vinegar.

I have completed one batch so far and happy with the color. The pigment is a blue/green in color but when mixed with oil is a nice green.

Copper strips dipped in vinegar

In the previous post I showed the copper strips hanging in a glass jar. They were dripped in vinegar and then the whole jar has been wrapped to keep in the vapours.

Safety First: I have used my brand new respirator and latex gloves when I was scraping off the pigments. When I have collected all the pigments needed for the painting I will need to grind them down some more using my glass muller. The respirator and gloves are used for this stage too.

This batch made a small amount of pigment.

verdigris pigment on coper plates

copper plates with residue

My goal is to glaze over a background made of white and lead yellow. This was a common method as paint analysis has found this a common practice at the time.

one batch of scraped off pigment

After scraping I exposed the copper to vinegar again and placed it back in the container. I think I need at lease two more batches before I have enough to do the background. A glaze will use less pigment so hopefully there will be enough.