Folio 02 · Oil

Earth Colors

Earths are the oldest paints there are, dug from the ground and reliable as gravity. They are cheap, permanent, fast-drying, and incapable of gaudiness, which is why every palette that has to work for a living carries them. Their real gift is what they do to other colors: an earth calms a cadmium without killing it, warms a white without turning it sweet, and builds flesh, walls, fields, and floors almost unassisted. This chapter walks the working earths through the mixtures painters actually use them for. None of it is glamorous. All of it gets used.