Paints and Pigments
A listing of some (not all!) pigments available in 16th century Persia:
| Color | Pigment | Source |
| Gold | Shell Gold | Purinton, Levey, webexhibits |
| Blue | Natural Ultramarine (Lapis Lazuli) | Purinton, Levey, V. Hayez, webexhibits |
| Red | Vermillion (Cinnabar) | Purinton, Levey, V. Hayez, webexhibits |
| Yellow | Orpiment | Purinton, Levey, V. Hayez, webexhibits |
| White | Lead White | Purinton, Levey, V. Hayez, webexhibits |
| Black | Carbon Black | Purinton, Levey, V. Hayez, webexhibits |
| Green | Mixed Lapis and Orpiment | Purinton, V. Hayez |
| Flesh tone | Red lead with lead white | Just a guess |
Note: The colors displayed on the table above are not representative of the true color of the pigment.
Various colors can be purchased from reputable pigment sellers such as Master John the Artificer, the Windhaven Scribe's Guild, iconofile.com or sinopia.com; though keep in mind that just because it is a powdered pigment does not make it historically accurate! Especially beware modern synthetic Ultramarine; it's a beautiful color, a lot easier to find than natural Ultramarine and inexpensive but the recipe only dates back to 1830.
There are green pigments (Verdegris, Malachite and Green Earth), however I found the Orpiment mixed with Lapis was a beautiful color and was more opaque and brilliant than the other pigments. Beware Viridian, it is a synthetic pigment like synthetic Ultramarine.
To make pigments into paint use gum Arabic1 as your binder and had ox gall added for flow. I use about roughly equal ammounts of gum arabic to pigment (too much gum will make your paint shiny and brittle, prone to cracking, too little and it will be dull and flake off of the page. You can counteract brittle paint by adding a touch of sugar or honey to the paint.) Just a drop or two of ox gall added to your paint will greatly improve the flow of the paint and aid in painting fine detail. Mix the paint well with a muller (or if you haven't a muller, use a small mortar and pestle.) You can use the paint imediately or transfer it into a dish or pallet for later use. Be careful if you use sea shells, some pigments will react with the shell. For reactive pigments a procelain dish is best.
I recommend a round natural sable watercolor brush for the painting. You want a natural hair brush as it will form to a point better and hold paint better than a synthetic brush. They may be more expensive, but you'll be better off not fighting your materials!
“A study of the Materials used by Medieval Persian Painters” references the burnishing of the paint (except for Lapis pigment) after applied with an agate or crystal egg burnisher2. It is likely that the lapis was not burnished simply because of the larger size of the grains of pigment and a shining of the pigment would likely make the color duller, rather than more brilliant.
For flesh tones I have used a little Vermillion mixed with lead white; I was worried this would be too pink without a yellow added (I could not add the Yellow Orpiment as it reacts with lead); however the natural yellow cast of the paper helped correct what otherwise might have been an overly pink tone. An even better choice may be mixing a small ammount of red lead (Relgar) with lead white; as both are leads they should mix well and the red lead has an orangish cast that will lend itself to making a peachy color. For gray simply mix carbon black with lead white.
1 Purinton, page 137 cites gum Arabic as the most prevalent binder for Persian manuscripts rather than egg glair used in most of the rest of Europe. As does Porter, page 91
2 Purinton, page 139
Webexhibit's Pigments through the Ages website: http://webexhibits.org/pigments/