Some cave and ochre scenes from this month’s research trip in Spain. 🎨😍🥾✨

This set of Ugandan pigments from Paintmakers of Lira is STUNNING!!! Taking time out of writing this morning to play around with the beautiful red-orange-brown Bala Maroon.

Day 5 (last day!) of Ochre Research Recap from this year’s NEH Public Scholar grant.  Pigments, ochres, and bits of earth that I’ve collected over the past year.

Day 4 of Ochre Research Recap from this year’s NEH Public Scholar grant. Bonjour Roussillon! The Luberon region has a rainbow landscape of ochres that have been mined for centuries. Today, they are part of the region’s eco-tourism efforts to connect visitors to landscape and history.

Day 3 Ochre Research Recap via this year’s NEH Public Scholar grant. In March, I attended a Wild Pigments and Foraged Paints workshop in Venice taught by the brilliant Caroline Ross and hosted by Artisans of Now. This was all about the “here and now” of earth pigments!

Day 2 of ochre research recap from NEH Public Scholar grant: Hello, Paviland Cave & the Red Lady!The site was excavated in 1823 by a team that included William Buckland, Lewis Dillwyn, & Mary Talbot. They uncovered the burial of an individual, beads, ivory rods, flints, & mammoth skull. And ochre.

Over the past year, work for my ochre book has been supported by the NEH through a Public Scholar grant. As the grant wraps up this week, I want to share parts of the ochre research I’ve explored these past twelve months. First up, an urban ochrescape – London!

So thrilled to have a home for The First Color, repped by
Anna Sproul-Latimer
at Neon Literary. For project updates and all things ochre, feel free to follow along via IG @lydiavpyne

Bastrop, TX. Ochres, sandstone, & mud.