Monday 6 December 2021

I require some Americano


Do you remember, or have you ever experienced the delicious feeling of liberation when you spontaneously and unilaterally decide to bunk off work? You wake up in the morning and feel the weight of another day bearing down on you. The weather could be foul - as it is today - or fair, when at some point in the first hour or so you think 'sod it' to yourself. I am having a guilt-free day off.

I am not truly having a day off, because I will be preparing for some things I have to do later in the week, but when I do go out into the wind and rain it will be with a lighter heart than I was expecting to have before dawn.

I am running low on black powder pigment. Black is usually the colour to be used up first, because the primary ones are used sparingly and their vividness has to be tempered with a dirty, greenish background. Only faux lichen demands unadulterated primaries.

I used to visit a children's educational shop here and buy tubs of dry pigment quite cheaply, but - of course - they were banned for being a dust hazard and horrible, murky, liquid colours were put in their place. I need as consistently strong pigments as possible and the beauty of the kids ones were that they were all the same strength. You do get used to putting in different quantities of varying strength pigments, but it is all trial and error so consequently a pain in the arse.

A few times I have been to London and bought pigments from an old theatrical supply shop in Drury Lane. These - if you haven't already guessed - are for backdrop painting and are very good for my purposes. I avoid artists pigments because they are so expensive and so inconsistent, but sometimes I have to use the lime-fast ones if going over mortar. Today I will walk to a traditional old decorators shop and hope they have remained traditional enough to stock dry pigment.

Scene: A bow-fronted, darkly-lit, wooden-floored interior with racks and shelves from floor to grubby ceiling. The tinkling of a small bell brings a white-aproned, elderly man out from an even darker recess at the rear of the shop.

Good afternoon Sir. How may I help you?

I require some black pigment.

Of course Sir. Does Sir require Lamp Black, Bone Black, Ivory Black, Carbon Black or Mars Black? We do have a limited quantity of Mumia in stock if Sir has a use for it.

These days there are more different types of coffee than there are black pigments, and the only one I can order with any certainty as to what I will get is... black.

19 comments:

  1. "I see a red door and I want to paint it black, no colours anymore..."
    In Germany I saw an advertisement for boots (made out of wool!) and the colour they described as "raven" - I bet a lot of people, not knowing that English word they used, might be a bit shocked when it arrives.

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    1. Ravens are iridescent. Anyone who can mix raven is a genius.

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  2. I know that day off feeling. I remember a few years ago, when work took me round perhaps six sites a day, I dreaded snow. An inch, I'd be expected to brave it. 4,5,6 inches, work stopped. I remember looking out early in the morning thinking please, please, please keep snowing!

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    1. I love snow for many reasons, especially that one. Those people stranded in the Tan Inn - what a once in a lifetime excuse.

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  3. Yes! I did it today on the pretence of posting off some parcels...a trip alone on the bus... no-one hassling me on to finish shopping.... no-one worried about missing the halfhourly bus back..
    No arts shop anywhere here any more, but I remember that type of shop. Like the real old ironmongers that sold everything!!

    The places I see loads of different blacks now are relief printing supplies.

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    1. The best black I have ever seen was created by thermographic fax machines.

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  4. When I did some pointing up last year it was near impossible to match the mortar colour until I'd got to mixing almost the last batch by which time the wall was 50 shades of red.

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    1. That is what we in the profession call 'testing'. You don't actually use the stuff until you have the right colour.

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    2. Yes, but professionals charge money!

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. I am now intrigued by the idea that you have had some sort of Tourette-type outburst and written all the bottled-up swearwords you known since childhood, only to delete them in a fit of remorse, Weave.

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  6. Many, many years ago my father would 'borrow' my paint box to forge permits for getting our lorries into the beet factory. (The permits were displayed in the windscreen and colour coded). He used to moan because I had always used a lot of the reds and blues that he needed most. I was about 6 at the time. I used to go to his desk in the morning to get my paints back and then moan about him for using up my favourite colours.

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    1. That's funny. I like the idea of him moaning to his 6 year-old daughter for using the colours he needed for his forgeries.

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    2. Oh, I just re-read it. It was you moaning to him. It's sill funny.

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    3. I read it again. You both moaned. Twice as funny.

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    4. We used to get quite indignant with each other over it.

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  7. I hope you enjoyed your day off. Yes, I've skipped out occasionally and had a great day. It is nice to just disappear for a while. I was not aware of the variation in black. Did you find the black you needed?

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    1. No, they didn't have it. I will have to look elsewhere. There are warm blacks, cool blacks and neutral blacks. I try to go for the neutral.

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