Hand-made Italian Artisanal Palette & Box
Limited number of palettes available for sale
The pigments contained here are a selection of the best quality available on the European market, bought from Kremer (Germany), Winsor and Newton (England) and Zecchi (Italy).
They have been chosen specifically to match the characteristic palette of the Venetian and Caravaggesque and early Baroque schools of painting, trying as much as possible to use the same colors of the original artists, with the addition of a few more modern ones when the ancient ones did not provide enough guarantees of photo stability.
Pigments have been ground on a frosted glass slab with a glass muller with distilled water using a circular movement for specific amounts of time for each pigment (from 1 to 8 hours) to render them finer or rougher and therefore more or less transparent. One can determine if the pigment has been ground long enough by painting a few strokes on the outer side of a clear glass bottle; if the color appears smooth and transparent with no grains visible, it has been ground enough.
The pigment is rendered into a painting paste by adding a mixture of Mastic varnish (Lukas, Germany) left to dry in the open air for 4 weeks, thus becoming sticky, viscous and dense; and a small amount of Canadian Balsam (Zecchi, Italy). Each pigment needs a different amount of varnish to wet into a paste; too much varnish will make the colors greasy and give them a gummy texture when applied on the painting (Titanium white accepts very little, Sienna earth needs very much.)
At this point, the pigments have been laid in pills on the palette and left to dry for 15 days.
They are now ready to be used by diluting them with one of these products:
• Pure Xylene (very toxic)
• 80% Ethanol+20% Ethel Lactate (reduced melting action on the pigments, with lower toxicity)
• 80% Buthanol+20% Turpentine ( slower drying speed ) or Petroleum Ether ( fast drying speed ) .
Zinc white is transparent (it matches the clouds very well); titanium white is dull and opaque (it matches the flesh very well)
Covering power colors on this palette: titanium white, Naples yellow, Cadmium yellow orange and red, vermillion, sap green and all the earths (Sienna, Umber). Transparent colors are all the others. Indian yellow, madder lacquer, bitumen are the most useful to match a transparent green, transparent violet and transparent warm brown tonalities for matching the aging patina layer.
Palette’s colors:
- Zinc white
- Titanium white
- Naples yellow
- Cadmium yellow
- Cadmium orange
- Cadmium red
- Cinnabar red
- Ultramarine blue
- Cerulean blue
- Sap green
- Emerald green
- Indian yellow
- Madder lacquer
- Yellow ochre
- Raw Sienna earth
- Burnt Sienna earth