Category: Paintings: mineral pigments in egg tempera
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The Ace of Disks for 28 Days
This pomegranate is a shattered copper vessel. The little green balls (one is hollow) are the glassy phosphate spheres that form in the ashes of funeral pyres (in the Tibetan Book of the Dead they are called “jewel-like relics”). Eventually, 28 pomegranates will form the series of daily cards for my moon oracle. That way,…
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Chubasco!
This is one of several mysterious pictographs in a rockhouse near the Gila River. The outer circle is pinkish-white clay or possibly chalk (caliche). The black circle is actually dark purple and is probably magnetite sand. The red circle is, of course, hematite (red ochre). The green is malachite (copper ore). Upon close examination, it appears that the…
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Clay, Iron, and Realgar
This pomegranate is painted with four kinds of green clay (plus black shale and a bit of charred bone). Green clays are sticky and always end up looking rather flat. But the colors are worth it! Two of these are glauconite (“terre verte”) from sedimentary rock, and two are bentonite and other clays from weathered…
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Two Eagles and Three Pomegranates
Today the air is so hot it burns, even in the shade, where it is 105. Vultures fly higher than usual on the rising thermals. Over the house, much higher than the vultures, we saw two eagles circling each other, heading south toward the clouds. A reminder of the two eagles that we saw on Sunday,…
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Tarot Update
An odd painting for this time of year, but this pomegranate painting shows an ending and the seeds of a new beginning. I sold the last numbered Ironwing Tarot deck today. I have a handful of full 78-card decks that are signed but not numbered, which are available for the same price but not advertised…
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Dark Moon: So Black, It’s Green.
Tonight the scrying pool of the Dark Moon is more than a black mirror. Now the Sun is strong enough to illuminate its shadowy green depths, since this moon will reflect the Summer Solstice light. At the edge of the pool are tiny bubblelike jelly spheres of Nostoc, the same cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that…
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Hello world!
Welcome to the Mineralarts blog, where I’ll post occasional flashes of creative inspiration, updates on various projects, and nature notes from the desert. Here’s a small painting that I finished yesterday – a bronze and glass pomegranate done in iron oxides, green clays, and malachite in egg tempera. More pomegranates to come! They are inspired by…
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