Piece Blue Pigment at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

By April 1968 more than 1,100 items had been cataloged, including a piece blue pigment of blue pigment large enough to undergo analysis. Archaeologists have determined the origin of all Maya pigments except blue, which is apparently a vegetable substance. The pigment is important because it was the sacrificial color; victims who were sacrificed in the cenote were undoubtedly painted with this rich blue color. Until excavations at the well, not enough of it had been discovered to make analysis feasible.

Yellow pigment must be neutralized cautiously as it turns green immediately when black or gray is used. The addition of red will turn it brown. Violet, which turns yellow into tones of mustard, is the best color to use. Browns are fundamentally a mixture of orange and black, but either yellow or red usually dominates in the mixture. These tinges may be counteracted by adding the missing one. If blue is added to a brown, the color neutralizes rapidly toward dark gray and appears cold. The addition of black pigment to any hue causes the hue to neutralize or disappear very rapidly so that only small quantities of black should be added slowly to any mixture. As the most intense yellow has the lightest tonal value of any brilliant hue, the addition of any other hue darkens the tonal value of the mixture. Conversely strong pigment colors of the red or blue families lighten their tonal value when yellow is added.

A much richer purple than any of the above mixtures will give is produced by Prussian blue and one of the lakes from cochineal—namely, carmine or crimson lake—but it is not permanent. This purple, as well as that obtained by mixing Indian red with indigo, also fugitive, was much used by water-color painters in past years. Purple madder is the only simple purple pigment available for the artist which is durable, and it is unfortunately costly. All purples are changed to neutral and gray tints by the addition of any yellow pigment.