This popped in to my in box this morning-The Complex History of Yellow, a “Mediocre” Color
— Read on hyperallergic.com/529864/the-complex-history-of-yellow-a-mediocre-color/

Penguin Dictionary of Symbols describes yellow as “the hottest, the most expansive and the most burning of all colors in its intensity, violence and almost strident shrillness … broad and dazzling as a flow of molten metal, being hard to put out and always overflowing the limits within which one tries to confine it.” 

Isabel asked in my last tutorial with her is your project about yellow?

It might have been easier to say yes, but it wouldn’t have been completely true.

I squirmed and said no, it felt like a lie.

I went off to investigate.

I have not been able to live with out yellow, it appears some where in everything I do even if I have had to disguise it by mixing it up or juxtaposing it with red or blue. I find painting or cooking without yellow impossible, I just don’t try any more. It is about lemons it is about sand it is about gold and light.

It is also just about yellow.

I have favourite yellow pigments and paints.

Daler rowney- lemon yellow

Lemon Yellow pigments.

Winsor and newton- cadmium yellow

Cadmium yellow pigments.

There is a gold cup in the British Museum that I can stare at for hours, its small and perfect. I couldn’t believe my luck when it was used in a show and tell session, the volunteer guide was brilliant. I had 6 year 3 children with me and we held the cup and talked about its properties, guessed its story and then our guide so proud of the object told us its unique tale.

https://www.rct.uk/collection/69742/the-rillaton-cup

They seem to miss the bit were it was lost and found on the prince of Wales’s bedside table being used as a tooth brush holder may be the guide was being creative. Children loved it.

Tap for link

“And it is this cup that King George V used to store his collar studs in his dressing room in Buckingham Palace” oh Chinese whispers its use has changed again.

Lemons were worth more than gold at one point in history and have medical uses.

Fosils from 8 million years ago – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42960445

History-https://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/fruits/lemon-types.asp

Turmeric ginger and marigold are food stuffs I struggle without also are often used in herbal medicine.

Eggs– yoke- so rich with so many uses for food,painting, reproduction.

Sand gives us glass- silica is one sort of sand.

Coral sand curiously comes courtesy of the parrot fish may not give us glass.

–https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/parrot-fish-poop-makes-beautiful-beaches/

Bristol Glass – the addition of cobalt to the silica (along with a few other ingredients) gives us blue glass the best glass for the safe long term storage of herbs, tinctures and other potions for the apothecaries.

Ground down blue glass made smalt long used in painting and other manufacturing processes as far back as the

Blue and gold.

Blue sky yellow sand, yellow sails.

Lemons silks, linens, walls and floors –

Soane museum has the most wonderful sitting room in chinese yellow-

It is my go to room when some one says paint me a room that will never be gloomy.

They have never needed persuasion once they have been there often hard to get them to leave – utopian installation.

I never dare mention Monet’s dinning room, with the blue kitchen beyond, they would just feel deprived.

With the addition of gold silica strangely gives us blood red glass.

Although there are a few more methods, link below:

https://www.cmog.org/article/gold-ruby-glass

Although I’m intrested in theses colours, I find that the magic element, the Alchemy practised by the people involved their stories and quests, their love of these colours is equality interesting.