Tanya Hayes Lee

I’m still looking for an efficient way to pulverize rocks, so in the meantime I decided to experiment with some pigments that can be created through chemical reactions. The two I chose to start with, because the colors are exceptionally beautiful and the components easily obtained, were red iron oxide and verdigris. Red iron oxide…

I do not like mussels. I do not eat mussels. And I certainly do not cook mussels. (Or much of anything else, but that’s a story for another time.) Relying on Abby’s observation that some mussels are blue, and my research that indicated blue mussels grow in Maine, I was planning a road trip to…

I’ve been swamped since my last post, mostly with the “back office” work that makes painting possible. Substack seemed a better way to get my posts out to you than MailChimp, but it took some time to set up. I still have a lot to learn about to use it most effectively, but if you are…

Gleba mentions a blue pigment deposit near abandoned mineral springs in Hopkinton, Mass. One Joel Norcross “discovered” the springs in 1815 while repairing his sawmill after a tornado and electrical storm (though surely they were known to the Native Americans who had been in the area for millennia). An analysis of the water from the…

It’s been a busy couple of weeks: a natural pigment workshop at what used to be Harvard’s Fogg Museum and is now part of the Harvard Art Museums complex; an investigation into a surprising source of red ochre pigment; and the first alchemical experiment of this art adventure. The workshop was presented by the very…

I expect some people will be relieved to know that I am not going to try to convert yellow ochre into red in my kitchen right now. The minimum temperature required is 500°C, not 500 °F. Or 200 °C. Or 300 °C. It’s just not that clear. I need to do more research to discover…

Much to my amazement, when I searched “ochre Massachusetts,” Google gave me a useful result, an abandoned “paint mine” active in the 1860s, where a natural deposit of ochre had yielded a yellow-brown pigment “of superior quality.” This very specific information was a great help to a neophyte pigment hunter who could reliably identify only…

Ochre, it turns out, is not just one substance. It is any of a variety of natural earth pigments that consist of ferric (iron) oxide, clay and sand and it ranges in color from red to yellow, to green, blue and purple; that is, it pretty much covers the spectrum of the colors the human…

I am delighted to announce that Alpers Fine Art, 8 Dock Square, Rockport,  MA, is now representing me. Located in the center of the beautiful seaside town famous for Motif #1 and Bearskin Neck, Alpers Fine Art is itself a destination for art collectors and connoisseurs. Be sure to stop by next time you are…