by Toni Watts | May 3, 2014 | Blog, Galleries and Art Exhibitions
The last month has flown by – how can it be May already?! So, what have I been doing? I went down to London for the Association of Art Historians annual conference, and heard some excellent papers. I’ve got some interesting (and maybe slightly offbeat)...
by Toni Watts | Apr 9, 2014 | Blog, Materials and Techniques
I thought I would just update you all about the state of my verdigris pigment production. Well, the good news is that it’s going well so far. This photo was taken the first time I had the copper out of its pot. This was about a week after starting, and I was...
by Toni Watts | Apr 3, 2014 | Blog, Out and About
Last weekend saw us up in Cumbria visiting Blackwell, an Arts and Crafts house around three miles from Windermere and one of our favourite places. What was the Arts and Crafts Movement? The Arts and Crafts Movement was basically a reaction to the...
by Toni Watts | Mar 25, 2014 | Blog, Materials and Techniques
Having learnt the techniques of extracting pigments from natural sources, I thought I would see if I could find stone locally that might give me a new colour. What stone did I use? Just along the road from us there was,...
by Toni Watts | Mar 16, 2014 | Blog, Galleries and Art Exhibitions
I was recently in London and decided to pop in to the Courtauld gallery exhibition ‘Court and Craft’. What is the focus of the exhibition? The star of the show is a metal bag which was made in northern Iraq around 1300. It’s made of...
by Toni Watts | Mar 13, 2014 | Blog, Materials and Techniques
Cennino Cennini, in his wonderful text Il Libro dell’Arte, describes verdigris as being ‘manufactured by alchemy, from copper and vinegar’. So I thought I would try my own bit of kitchen windowsill alchemy. I...
