What a cool question! I who has a ridiculous amount of Derwent pencils and facepaints so I know a little about this. Now whilst you are right that every colour can be broken down into how much red, yellow, and blue is in it, paints are a little different.
in ancient times, paints were often made from crushed flowers or other such colour objects found in nature (or non colourful for white) In fact this is something you can try yourself, i know i did as a kid!
The Australian Aboriginals obtained red, dark purple, brown and orange from grinding ochre to a powder. Ochre was found naturally in rock stained by iron, which would give it the reddish hues.
Yellow was obtained by mixing clay, or by collecting pebbles that conatined a limonite-stained form of kaolin. White also came from the kaolin, or even white clays. Calcite, a chalky mineral, as well as ash are used to make white pigments. Calcite occurs naturally in calcrete deposits.
Black was obtained from charcoal, and could be mixed with kaolin to make grey.
Dark green was made from plant colourings.
Tree bark, crushed shells and blood also gave variety of colour. The availability of some colours are peculiar to the area that the artist finds himself in.
These paint bases were mixed with fluids such as saliva, blood, tree sap or yolk of various animals’ eggs to help them adhere.
Nowadays, we have the technology to extract colours from natural sources into a powder form which is then added to painsts. for white, they often add titanium oxide.
Coloured pigments can also be synthesised, because the things in nature are coloured because of them chemical structure, and this can be replicated in labs
What a cool question! I who has a ridiculous amount of Derwent pencils and facepaints so I know a little about this. Now whilst you are right that every colour can be broken down into how much red, yellow, and blue is in it, paints are a little different.
in ancient times, paints were often made from crushed flowers or other such colour objects found in nature (or non colourful for white) In fact this is something you can try yourself, i know i did as a kid!
The Australian Aboriginals obtained red, dark purple, brown and orange from grinding ochre to a powder. Ochre was found naturally in rock stained by iron, which would give it the reddish hues.
Yellow was obtained by mixing clay, or by collecting pebbles that conatined a limonite-stained form of kaolin. White also came from the kaolin, or even white clays. Calcite, a chalky mineral, as well as ash are used to make white pigments. Calcite occurs naturally in calcrete deposits.
Black was obtained from charcoal, and could be mixed with kaolin to make grey.
Dark green was made from plant colourings.
Tree bark, crushed shells and blood also gave variety of colour. The availability of some colours are peculiar to the area that the artist finds himself in.
These paint bases were mixed with fluids such as saliva, blood, tree sap or yolk of various animals’ eggs to help them adhere.
Nowadays, we have the technology to extract colours from natural sources into a powder form which is then added to painsts. for white, they often add titanium oxide.
Coloured pigments can also be synthesised, because the things in nature are coloured because of them chemical structure, and this can be replicated in labs
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