Monday, 12 April 2021

YinMn ~ A new blue pigment

 

Fun Art Stuff

A new blue pigment


YInMn, an intriguingly cryptically named pigment, has amazed and excited industrialists and artists since it was accidentally discovered in 2009. A fascinating account describes how YInMn, (pronounced Yin-min), a blue pigment was accidentally created by chemists at Oregon State University, when Yttrium, Indium and Manganese were mixed with oxygen, producing an inorganic brilliant blue compound. Also identified as Oregon Blue or Mas Blue, after the name of the lead USU chemist, Mas Subramanian, YinMn is reported to be the first new blue colour discovered in two hundred years. Because the colour is durable and stable, even at extremely high heat, it was first used industrially for paints and coatings, and more recently has been used commercially. The colour inspired a new Crayola Crayon called “bluetiful,” as well as added to artists’ palettes a rich, intense, vibrant and brilliant new shade, in colour between Ultramarine and Cobalt Blue.

Making Blue Paint
Blue pigments were originally made from minerals such as lapis lazuli, cobalt and azurite while dyes were made from plants, such as woad in Europe and indigo in Asia and Africa. To make blue paint lapis lazuli and azurite were crushed, then ground into powder, then mixed with a quick-drying agent such as egg yolk to make tempera paints, or with slow-drying oil, like linseed oil, added to make oil paints. Watercolour was made by adding gum arabic and other additives to pigment. Before commercial manufacture of paints artists made their own paints in their own workshops, grinding their own pigments and mixing them with additives. Today most blue pigments and dyes are made by a chemical process in commercial laboratories.

Of concern to users, blue pigments unfortunately have detrimental health and environmental effects and are not durable. We have heard of the health declines and poisoning of artists such as Turner and Van Gogh purportedly caused or exacerbated by their paints. Cobalt Blue, Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Blue and Azurite all pose some toxic risks for painters and many artists wear protective gloves while painting, particularly when using these blues. By contrast, YInMn Blue is chemically stable, does not fade and is non-toxic.
 
Availability and Cost
YInMn pigment remains extremely rare and very expensive and most artists’ paint companies have been discouraged from including it in their product lines; one supplier apparently prices a 40 ml tube of the blue paint at $179.40. Golden, Kremer and Shepherd paint labs are developing YInMn product lines. Golden Artists Colours is offering heavy body acrylic, oil and watercolour paint made with YInMn pigment. The colour is not yet available but one can join a notification list by contacting the Golden Customer Service Team and Custom Lab.  

Unfortunately, the stunning and appealing colour has been seized by the black market who use illicit pigment to produce copy-cat paints, milling the dry pigment into an acrylic emulsion. Be wary of low-priced paints claiming to be YInMn Blue, or a trade name that has the ring of the pigment name, perhaps offered through arts and craft on-line or discount suppliers.
 

YInMn Pigment Blue Bird

Connecticut artist Michael Rothman produced his own blue paint by hand-milling dry YInMn pigment in an emulsion resin and painted this imagined 47 million-year-old bird believed to have been the oldest to have blue plumage. The colour is astoundingly intense and perhaps serves as an inspiration for pictures we may one day produce when this paint is ours to use, too.

More Colours to Come
Following the surprise and success of YInMn Blue chemists have expanded their research and have synthesized a range of new pigments including oranges, purples, turquoise’s and greens. Elusive so far is red, an ongoing challenge to create.
-- researched and submitted by Janice Graham

Thursday, 1 April 2021

History Corner ~ March 2021 ~ by John Lover


History Corner
by John Lover

The band of enthusiasts who gathered together in 1909, fired by a determination to encourage artistic and cultural development of Victoria in the form the Island Arts Club, included some prominent figures in the community's history. Such names as Pemberton, Crease, O’Reilly, Maclure and Carr roll easily off the tongue. Yet one that has never been subjected to biographical  excesses is the lady who hosted these initial meetings and seems to have played a significant part as one of the moving spirits-- if not the moving spirit -- in the coordination of the group.

We do know that the understated Mary Bampfylde Daniell was born in Devonshire, England, from where she moved to London to pursue her artistic interests under the tuition of members of the Royal Academy, in which she was accepted as a probationer, and in due course admitted as a student. She exhibited her work in the capital from 1898 to the time of her emigration to Canada and her arrival in BC in 1905.

With a partner, she started an advertising and illustration company under the title of Rochfort and Daniell. She also began to paint local scenes and people, and was soon accepted into the developing Vancouver art community. She initially exhibited with the Studio Club, then the focus of local art, in 1907, and then with the BC Society of Fine Arts, formed in 1909, of which she was a charter member. During this period in Vancouver she exhibited in the company of such fellow artists as Samuel Maclure, John Kyle and Emily Carr, soon to be companions in a new enterprise. 

The scene had shifted to Victoria by October 1909 when the publication This Week reported:  “A very representative meeting was held… at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. C. Bampfylde Daniell, when a large number of Victorians prominent in artistic circles were present, and the unanimous resolution was passed to form a Society to be called the Vancouver Island Society of Arts and Crafts. Mrs. C. Bampfylde Daniell was elected Honorary Secretary and it is proposed to call a more extensive meeting at an early date.” 

And so the story unfolded. After a series of meetings hosted at the Bampfylde Danniel home at 609 Michigan Street, a residence built in 1860 and demolished in 1925, the outcome was the Island Arts Club which was comprised of 56 charter members. In a subsequent article in Opportunities Magazine in 1911, Mary expressed her thinking behind this project: “It has long been held as a matter of regret among lovers of art in Victoria that artists come to this city, but do not remain, and it is to create some feeling of friendliness and goodwill toward them that the Island Arts Club has been started.”  

She was able to report that the Club boasted 80 members after its first year, and paid tribute to its first President, J.J. Shallcross, for using his local influence in the vigorous promotion of this new venture.

Mary’s subsequent involvement with this new body seems to have been relatively short, with contributions to just three of its annual shows – in 1910, 1912 and 1913. However, what she went on to say was to prove prophetic: “The Island Arts Club has come to stay, and it is hoped that it will receive the support and encouragement due to it from all lovers of the beautiful.”

Indeed, it has, and after more than a century of fluctuating fortunes, we’re still alive and well.

IIlustrations:  (1) Entrance to Victoria Harbour (2) 609 Michigan StreetHi