Margret E. Short Fine Arts

Portland, Oregon artist Margret Short - a modern day master of 17th Century Dutch art using the chiaroscuro technique to create still life and floral paintings.

Pigments: Historical and Modern

There is a distinct difference between modern day pigments and the natural pigments used prior to the middle of the 1700s. In the past, artists had apprentices who ground the colors for them throughout the oil painting sessions. Because they were made by hand, the pigments retained a natural grittiness and consistency with larger particle size. Today's oil paint manufacturers make synthetic colors in huge vats where the end result is exceptional smoothness. Prior to the middle of the 1700, natural pigments came from dirt, minerals, and even plants.

Felucca

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What do Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, King Farouk, and Dave and Margret Short all have in common? We all sailed down the Nile while visiting the magnificent antiquities of Egypt......in a felucca! This graceful sailing vessel is motor-less and relies on the Egyptian southerly winds to push it upstream. These winds build during the day and … [Read more...] about Felucca

More Mummy Tales

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Many followers of this blog often ask if I had ever read anything about a pigment called, mummy yellow, or mummy brown. Well, I have, and this is probably the most bizarre and creepy pigment story yet. In her book, Colors, Anne Verichon says that in ancient Egypt mummy yellow was sacred because it was made from real mummies. In the embalming … [Read more...] about More Mummy Tales

Details Please

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This detail of the same painting shows a chunk of malachite similar to those found in the Egyptian rooms at the Smithsonian. I thought it fitting to portray the mineral as the ancients would have found it before it was ground into a pigment.   … [Read more...] about Details Please