Pigments for a dark goddess
The texts describe Kali as dark. Some say black as collyrium, some say the blue-black of a monsoon cloud. Her name is close to kala, which means both black and time. Painting her means deciding what kind of darkness you mean.
I have been testing pigments for a large Kali for most of this spring. These are my notes.
The candidates
| Pigment | Source | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Lamp black | Soot from an oil flame | Soft, warm, slightly brown in thin layers |
| Bone black | Charred bone | Deeper, cooler, a little more glossy |
| Indigo | Plant, fermented | Blue-black in mass, sky-blue in a wash |
| Azurite | Copper mineral | Greenish blue, grainy, glitters in the light |
| Lapis (ultramarine) | Ground stone | The purest blue; expensive; transparent |
What happened
Lamp black alone was too quiet. It sat on the surface like a hole. Bone black was more alive but went flat when dry.
The figure came to life when I laid indigo first, in thin washes that dried almost blue, and built the black on top in a few loose passes. Where the black thinned, the blue showed through like light in a night sky. It moves when you walk past it.
The ones I left out
Two traditional colours did not make it onto the palette: cinnabar for the red of her tongue, and orpiment for the yellow of her ornaments. Both are beautiful. Cinnabar is mercury sulphide and orpiment is arsenic. I use modern substitutes and wear a mask anyway.
There is an old instruction to prepare colours as part of the worship, grinding them in silence before the painting begins. I have started doing this, mostly because it is the only time in the day my hands are busy and my mind is not. The goddess of time asks you to take your time.