Michael Harding: “Miracle Medium” – biodegradable diluents
In a candid conversation with Michael Harding, the visionary behind the eponymous brand renowned for its oil paints and art supplies, a spotlight falls on his latest innovation – the “Miracle Mediums.”

Harding’s recent investigations have unearthed a profound revelation regarding the long-term impact of traditional solvents on oil paints. Delving beneath the surface with microscopic precision, it becomes evident that linseed oil comprises a delicate chain-like structure. Introducing conventional solvents disrupts these chains, resulting in a gradual diminishment of color vibrancy over time. Yet, the burning question remains: do these chains reassemble post-solvent evaporation and paint drying? Harding elucidates that while they do regenerate, they do so in truncated forms, signifying an alteration in color attributes and heightened susceptibility to temporal degradation.

The Color Black: History and Essential Differences between its Manufactured Shades.

Claude Monet wrote in his memoirs that he used to paint outdoors with John Singer Sargent. Singer Sargent asked Monet for his paint box. Monet knew the two words he would hear when Singer Sargent saw the box. Indeed, Singer Sargent did not find any black paint in the box, and it was a dark day for Monet.

Firstly, it’s important to know that there are four shades of black produced by companies, as well as other similar shades, but let’s focus on the most famous shades of this color.

Prussian Blue – The Story and History:

There are many stories about the discovery of this blue color, but the most accurate and closest to the truth is the one mentioned by the German doctor “Georg Ernst Stahl”, born in 1659, who recounted and said:

There was a pigment maker in Berlin named Diesbach who was producing a series of red pigments using some insects and chemicals, including potassium. When he ran out of potassium, he went to a pharmacist named Johann Conrad to buy a new quantity of potassium. However, for some unknown reason, the pharmacist sold Diesbach contaminated potassium tainted with dried animal blood. Why he did this, nobody knows.

Why do we call it French ultramarine?
Let’s hear the story.
The color ultramarine was discovered before the nineteenth century, extracted from the blue lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. It was almost the most expensive pigment in the world. Grinding a whole kilogram of stone would produce only 30 grams of the color pigment. Artists restricted its use to garments of sacred figures and used it very sparingly. Moreover, the cost of using ultramarine was billed separately from the artist’s fee for the painting. Anyone wanting to create a painting with this color had to bear the cost of the amount of pigment used. The term ‘ultramarine’ in Latin means ‘beyond the seas,’ referring to the distant land of Afghanistan, far from Europe, where the pigment was extracted. Until a French chemist named Jean Guimet came along and prepared the color in a laboratory by adding some chemical elements to it, extracting a more vibrant blue than the original pigment.
Hence, the name ‘French ultramarine’ was given to this blue color, which remained widely used and became a staple in artists’ palettes worldwide.

“Carmine red color is considered one of the most expensive shades of red, and it is extracted from the cochineal insect dye. You should know that there are thousands of living organisms that sacrifice their lives for you to paint.”

Carmine is a red dye derived from the dried and powdered scale insects of the female cochineal scale (Dactylopius coccus). Also known as carminic acid or E120, this dye is widely used in the food industry and cosmetics.
The female cochineal scale insects reside on cactus plants, feed on plant sap, and excrete a red fluid known as carmine. These insects are harvested, dried, and finely ground to extract the dye. The chemical structure of carmine primarily consists of carminic acid, a natural dye belonging to the anthraquinone group.
In art, carmine holds particular significance due to its intense red color. The transparency of carmine pigments allows artists to achieve vibrant effects, and its mixability enables the creation of a wide range of shades when combined with other colors. The high colorfastness ensures that artworks do not fade over time. Artists can employ carmine in various mediums such as watercolors, oil paints, and acrylics for versatile artistic expression.

The rest of the colors manufactured from very expensive pure oxides.. Gamblin collects them every year and mixes them together in the spring and produces a limited number of limited edition tubes of a degree of gray different from the usual gray and named it Torrit Gray
The beautiful thing about this color is that every year with the difference in the rest of the colors collected in the factory, the shade of gray will be different from each year, and the company announces that every year it will use a color that is not repeated at all.. Greetings to all art makers and everything related to its production