The experimentation with historic pigments continues to bring unexpected periods of learning and discovery. It is surprising, again and again, how few colors are necessary. During the painting of #8 and #9, the green pigment on my palette was narrowed down to one, vagone because of its good drying qualities. If you will remember the previous color tests made specifically for drying times, most of the other greens were very poor driers, so they were eliminated, but vagone was adequate so I kept using it.
One very irritating drawback to vagone green however, is its low tinting power. In artspeak this is called saturation. If you take some of the green and add some white, the white over powers it because there is no strength to the green pigment. Many of the historic pigments have this characteristic, but this green is particularly low. No matter how much pigment is put into a leaf or stem in a painting passage, it remains a very gray green, even with the addition of a yellow.
An old standby technique came into use here, the mixture of yellow and black. It is difficult to imagine that these two pigments make green, but it is actually a very nice green.
It depends completely on which yellow is used; that is, yellow ochre, lead tin yellow or a yellow lake. Many different varieties are achieved here. Because of the complete success of these combinations in green making, I have eliminated the need for vagone or any other green earth pigment. Much of my research shows that many of the 17th century masters, including Rembrandt, did not use a green on their palette, but relied on black and yellows when a green was needed.
Another interesting discovery is the malachite pigment. In a limited way I have used this one throughout the project, but it has a very strange consistency. It is probably one of the most unpleasant pigments to work with that I have tried. It separates from the oil easily and has very poor brushability qualities. It just seems to stick on the tip of the brush until it is forced onto the canvas.
For these reasons, I have eliminated another unnecessary pigment from my palette which makes the painting and color mixing process go smoother. The fewer colors, the less confusing it becomes.