Natural pigments

I love this blog from colourlovers.com on prehistoric colors and natural pigments still in use today. The photo of the earth colors in their natural state is amazing. A student in one of my classes some years ago had collected these pigments in Italy and brought them to show us--incredibly beautiful.

Speaking of pigments, I finally got around to checking out four more M. Graham watercolors on my chart. All are richly pigmented and I liked them, except I didn't find the Manganese Blue Hue to be near enough to the original to merit the name. However, it's a beautiful color and would work well as a cyan in an expanded palette. The Cadmium Yellow Deep is rich and opaque, and I love the Permanent Green Pale. I don't care much for the phthalocyanine greens in the yellow shades, but this one is a different mixture. Clear and bright. The M. Graham Terra Rosa is opaque, like Indian Red in other brands. I like this color for Southwestern themes. My chart is complete, except for Mineral Violet. One of these days I'll run across it, I'm sure. If I have it, it is buried somewhere in the vicinity of my drafting table. Know what I mean?