A Love of Pigments and Paints

Demonstration to Keswick Art Society

An Appleby-based artist, usually renowned for his pen and ink personalized portraits of buildings, spoke about his love of pigments and paints at the September meeting of Keswick Society of Art.

Over the years, Mark Hilsden has created many unique paintings of houses, cottages and castles. Included in his illustrations are often the mementoes and hobbies of the person who has commissioned the work from him, thus creating ''visual biographies''.

His talk was entitled ''All about Pigments''.

He started by sharing with his audience circa 40,000 years of pigment history – from pre-historic man first being aware of the possibility of painting with coloured earth in caves or of adorning his own body.

Mark talked about the range of reds, yellows, oranges, and brown ochres across the Eden Valley. He produced a clump of red clay embedded with grit and small stones, which he smashed with a geological hammer to create a small pile of pigment. Mark then ground it to finer powder with a unique glass implement called a ''muller'' before twice sieving it to eliminate any coarse grit. He then placed it in a jar of water so the remaining grit sediment would sink to the bottom, thus leaving behind pure watercolour.

He showed the green pigment that could be obtained from the Honister Slate mines and greyish blue from Burlington slate in the South Lakes.

Although the finest blues available, as employed by Renaissance artists, are obtained from Lapis Lazuli, mined in Afghanistan.

Mark then demonstrated using an egg yolk which, when combined with water, creates egg tempera. Egg tempera was the method of applying paint, usually used by artists until circa 1500 when oil paints were developed.

He produced a hollow aluminium tube, invented in the late 1800s, which revolutionized the art world by allowing artists to paint ''en plein air''. Rather than having to mix pigments in their studios as they had during previous centuries. 

He gradually added walnut oil to a small pile of pigment and then demonstrated how to fill tubes with oil paint.

Around the hall were many pots of coloured pigment in many hues, samples of which Mark sells from his workshop at Castle Fine Arts, Appleby.

The talk “Love of Pigments and Paints” appeared in the The Westmorland Herald on the 18th October 2022 after giving a talk and demonstration to the Keswick Art Society (reprinted with kind permission).

The artist also gives tailor made talks to Art Clubs, Special Interest Societies and other organizations such as Natural England.