Envying you your gratifying progress and circle of like-minded friends! Also, your ability to knit–my ability is to knot.

If you need anything regarding pigments and painting technique, I would be happy to share what I have. Ralph Meyer’s book, Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques, is a pretty exhaustive resource. If you want to see some masterful description of old-school painting technique in fiction, try Will Davenport’s “The Painter”–though I’ll warn you, it has a very disappointing ending, reminiscent of a B-grade horror flick, but its descriptions of Rembrandt as a painter are spot-on. Check out http://www.NaturalPigments.com for a lot of technical information regarding specific pigments, as well as articles about traditional painting technique, including silverpoint, encaustic and egg-tempera. Website is not as user-friendly as some, but they very readily answer any questions you have if you call. Materials Safety Data Sheets are available for most pigments online, and give a lot of technical information. I could bore you with a lot more resources and chemical details about various historic pigments (and some modern ones)–after all, David calls me the “Paint Geek”–but you might start with the above…

Emily Smith