Pigment Sources

Part of Pigments and Paint

Finding and identifying pigment source materials in the natural environment.

Why This Matters

Before you can make paint, you need pigment. Before you can process pigment, you need to find it. The ability to identify pigment-bearing materials in your environment is the foundation of the entire paint-making chain. Fortunately, usable pigment sources exist in virtually every landscape — iron-stained soils, chalk deposits, charcoal from any fire, colored clays, mineral outcrops, and dozens of plant and animal sources.

The challenge is not scarcity but recognition. Most people walk past ochre deposits, manganese nodules, and chalk seams without realizing they are looking at the raw materials for a complete paint palette. Once you train your eye to spot these materials, you will find pigment sources everywhere — in road cuts, stream banks, cliff faces, plowed fields, and construction excavations.

Knowing where pigments come from also means knowing where other critical resources are located. Iron oxide deposits indicate iron ore. Copper carbonate (malachite) marks copper deposits. Manganese nodules signal manganese ore. Pigment prospecting is mineral prospecting, and every pigment find adds to your community’s resource map.

Earth Pigments

Earth pigments are the most accessible and abundant pigment sources. They are weathered minerals mixed with clay, found on or near the surface.

Yellow Ochre

What it is: Hydrated iron oxide (goethite, limonite) mixed with clay

Where to find it:

• Stream and river banks — look for yellow-brown staining on exposed soil
• Road cuts and construction excavations in iron-rich terrain
• Cliff faces and erosion gullies
• Deposits of yellow or golden-brown clay
• Areas where groundwater seeps from iron-bearing rock — the yellow-brown staining around springs is often usable ochre

How to identify:

• Color ranges from pale cream-yellow to deep golden brown
• Feels earthy, slightly gritty
• Marks on white paper or stone when rubbed
• Leaves a yellow-brown streak
• Soft enough to scratch with a fingernail

Quality Indicator

The most intensely colored deposits make the best pigment. Pale, sandy ochre contains too much non-pigment material and requires extensive processing. Deep golden ochre may be usable with minimal processing.

Red Ochre

What it is: Anhydrous iron oxide (hematite) mixed with clay

Where to find it:

• Red-stained soil deposits — often found near yellow ochre but in drier, more oxidized layers
• Hematite nodules — dark, metallic-looking lumps that leave a red streak when scratched on rough stone
• Red clay deposits
• Volcanic areas and highly weathered terrain

How to identify:

• Red to reddish-brown color
• Hematite nodules may appear dark gray or black on the outside but streak red
• The streak test is definitive: scratch the material against unglazed white ceramic or rough stone. True red ochre always gives a red streak, regardless of the lump color

Umber and Sienna

What they are: Iron oxide with varying amounts of manganese dioxide

Where to find:

• Darker brown earth deposits — deeper layers than ochre, often in stream cutbanks
• Areas with both iron and manganese mineralization
• Bog edges and wetland margins (manganese concentrates in wet environments)

How to distinguish:

• Umber is darker (more manganese) — greenish-brown to dark brown
• Sienna is warmer (less manganese) — yellowish-brown, more translucent

Mineral Sources

White Pigments

Source	Material	Where Found	Quality
Chalk	Calcium carbonate	Chalk cliffs, limestone formations	Good, slightly transparent
Limestone	Calcium carbonate	Widespread sedimentary rock	Moderate — needs extensive grinding
Kaolin	Aluminum silicate	Weathered granite deposits, white clay banks	Excellent — very smooth
Gypsum	Calcium sulfate	Evaporite deposits, desert regions	Moderate — soft, easy to grind
Eggshells	Calcium carbonate	Poultry	Good after fine grinding
Seashells	Calcium carbonate	Coastal areas	Good after calcination and grinding
Diatomaceous earth	Silica	Lake beds, dried pond deposits	Fair — very white but low hiding power

Green Pigments

Malachite:

• Bright green banded mineral, copper carbonate
• Found near copper ore deposits — look for green staining on rocks
• Often appears as crusts, coatings, or small rounded masses on copper-bearing rock
• Test: fizzes in vinegar

Green earth (terre verte):

• Celadonite or glauconite — iron-magnesium silicate minerals
• Found in certain clay deposits and marine sediments
• Dull sage green to olive green
• Not as vivid as malachite but far more common
• Look for greenish clay layers in exposed sedimentary sequences

Blue Pigments

Azurite:

• Deep blue copper carbonate mineral
• Found alongside malachite in copper ore zones
• Much rarer than malachite — azurite often alters to malachite over time
• Highly valued — the only bright blue mineral pigment available without chemical synthesis

Vivianite:

• Blue iron phosphate mineral
• Forms in waterlogged, organic-rich sediments (bogs, peat, lake bottoms)
• Initially colorless, turns blue on exposure to light and air
• Less vivid than azurite but more widely available

Black Pigments

Manganese dioxide (pyrolusite):

• Black mineral found as nodules, coatings, and dendrite patterns on rock surfaces
• Common in many geological environments
• Very dense and hard
• Produces a cool, blue-black pigment
• Test: leaves a black streak; harder than charcoal

Magnetite:

• Black iron oxide (Fe3O4)
• Strongly magnetic — test with a magnet
• Found in igneous and metamorphic rocks, also as black sand in streams
• Produces a dense, warm black

Carbon Sources

Carbon provides the most accessible blacks and is available everywhere fire exists.

Charcoal

• Hardwood charcoal (oak, maple, beech) produces the densest, most finely-grained black
• Softwood charcoal is lighter and more gray
• Vine charcoal (from grape vines or similar) produces a soft, easily ground drawing material
• Select the hardest, most completely carbonized pieces — incompletely charred wood produces brownish, weak pigment

Lamp Black (Soot)

The finest carbon pigment:

• Burn any oil (vegetable, animal fat) or resin (pine pitch, spruce gum) in a lamp
• Collect the soot deposited on a cold surface held above the flame
• Soot from resin is slightly brownish; soot from clean oils is the purest black
• Already ultra-fine — requires minimal grinding

Bone Black

• Bones carbonized in a sealed container (oxygen excluded)
• Produces a warm, slightly brownish black with high tinting strength
• The phosphate content gives it different optical properties than pure carbon black
• Available wherever animals are processed

Plant Sources

Plant-based pigments are generally less permanent than minerals but provide colors difficult to obtain from mineral sources.

Reds and Pinks

• Madder root (Rubia tinctorum): Deep red pigment extracted by boiling dried roots. Precipitate onto chalk or alum for a stable pigment (called “madder lake”)
• Brazilwood: Red heartwood produces red dye/pigment when boiled
• Safflower: Flower petals yield both yellow and pink pigments depending on extraction pH

Yellows

• Saffron (Crocus sativus): Intense yellow from the stigmas — extremely expensive by weight but very powerful
• Turmeric: Bright yellow root — widely available but fades in light
• Weld (Reseda luteola): Yellow dye plant — boil the entire plant, precipitate onto alum
• Buckthorn berries: Produce a warm yellow

Blues and Purples

• Woad (Isatis tinctoria): Blue pigment from fermented leaves — complex process but widely grown in temperate climates
• Indigo (Indigofera): Deeper blue than woad, same active compound (indigotin) — tropical/subtropical plant
• Elderberries: Produce a purple-blue juice — temporary, fades quickly

Making Plant Pigments More Permanent

Plant dyes can be converted into more stable pigments through the “lake” process:

1. Make a strong dye extract by boiling plant material in water
2. Dissolve alum (potassium aluminum sulfate) in the hot dye extract
3. Add a solution of washing soda (sodium carbonate) or wood ash lye
4. A colored precipitate forms — this is the “lake” pigment
5. Filter, wash, and dry the precipitate
6. Grind to fine powder

Lake pigments are significantly more lightfast than raw plant dyes, though still less permanent than mineral pigments.

Prospecting Tips

Where to Look

• Road cuts and quarries: Expose subsurface geology — excellent for finding ochre, chalk, and mineral deposits
• Stream banks: Erosion reveals colored clay layers. Stream beds may contain mineral nodules washed from upstream
• Cliff faces and bluffs: Layered sedimentary sequences often contain distinct colored strata
• Plowed fields: Freshly turned soil exposes colored earth deposits
• Construction excavations: Foundation digging often uncovers ochre and clay
• Springs and seeps: Iron-bearing groundwater deposits ochre at the surface

Mapping Your Sources

Create a pigment resource map for your territory:

1. Mark the location of each discovered source on your community map
2. Note the color, quality estimate, and approximate quantity available
3. Record the date of discovery and a reference sample
4. Revisit promising sites in different seasons — rain and erosion expose new material
5. Share the map with your community — multiple prospectors find sources faster than one

Field Testing

Carry these simple tests when prospecting:

• White ceramic fragment or tile: Rub the material against it to see the true streak color
• Small knife: Test hardness (scratches easily = soft pigment = easy processing)
• Water bottle: Wet the sample to see true color (dry minerals look different from wet)
• Vinegar: A few drops test for carbonate minerals (fizzing = limestone/chalk/malachite)
• Magnet: Test for magnetite (magnetic black mineral)
• Paper or cloth scrap: Test marking/staining properties