Pigments Gums & Resins

Rosin is the powdered form of colophony, which is a by-product of the distillation of turpentine. Its primary application is to create tonal areas on metal plates as an aquatint resist. It is also an additive in etching grounds, where it gives a hard surface to the otherwise soft wax. Learn More

B72 Acrylic Adhesive is touch dry in 3-5 minutes, surface dry in 1 hour and hard dry in around 6 hours. Not having instant grab, fragments can be easily re-adjusted and surplus adhesive removed with acetone, making any joint virtually invisible. It’s ideal for repairs to pottery, wood, metal, glass, ivory and many porous substances. 14ml. Learn More

HMG Acrylic Restoration Adhesive. Heat and waterproof adhesive for repairs to pottery, wood, porcelain, leather etc. Not suitable for use on rubber. 14ml. Learn More

Dragon's Blood is a natural, resin, mentioned by Pliny in his Natural History. It has a weak tinting strength, and its rich red-colour can be fugitive in direct sunlight. It is fully soluble in alcohol, and can be used to add a warm, transparent tone to spirit varnishes. Also available in lump form.

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Dragon's Blood is a natural, resin, mentioned by Pliny in his Natural History. It has a weak tinting strength, and its rich red colour can be fugitive in direct sunlight. It is fully soluble in alcohol, and can be used to add a warm, transparent tone to spirit varnishes. Also available in powdered form.

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Shellac is a natural resin that is deposited by the female lac insect on the branches of trees in India and Thailand. It is soluble with alcohol, but not with mineral spirits or turpentine. It forms a tough yet flexible film, with many applications. It is suitable as a top coat for gilding when applied thinly, a sealant for porous surfaces, an isolating layer for tempera paintings, a base for pigmented inks, a protective layer for collograph plates, and a warm varnish for wooden floors and furniture. As it is prone to darkening with age, it is not recommended as a varnish for oils, and its solubility can reduce over time. There are various grades of shellac. When mixed with alcohol, it may initially form a cloudy mixture, due to traces of wax in the shellac, but this should become clear once it has dried. The highest grades of shellac are Clear Dewaxed Shellac, which has been de-coloured using the carbon filtering method, Lemon Shellac, and Orange Shellac, which are pale in colour. Button Shellac is less refined and therefore produces a reddish varnish. It was, in fact, widely used as a red dye before synthetic dyes became available. Learn More

Shellac is a natural resin that is deposited by the female lac insect on the branches of trees in India and Thailand. It is soluble with alcohol, but not with mineral spirits or turpentine. It forms a tough yet flexible film, with many applications. It is suitable as a top coat for gilding when applied thinly, a sealant for porous surfaces, an isolating layer for tempera paintings, a base for pigmented inks, a protective layer for collograph plates, and a warm varnish for wooden floors and furniture. As it is prone to darkening with age, it is not recommended as a varnish for oils, and its solubility can reduce over time. There are various grades of shellac. When mixed with alcohol, it may initially form a cloudy mixture, due to traces of wax in the shellac, but this should become clear once it has dried. The highest grades of shellac are Clear Dewaxed Shellac, which has been de-coloured using the carbon filtering method, Lemon Shellac, and Orange Shellac, which are pale in colour. Button Shellac is less refined and therefore produces a reddish varnish. It was, in fact, widely used as a red dye before synthetic dyes became available. Learn More

Shellac is a natural resin that is deposited by the female lac insect on the branches of trees in India and Thailand. It is soluble with alcohol, but not with mineral spirits or turpentine. It forms a tough yet flexible film, with many applications. It is suitable as a top coat for gilding when applied thinly, a sealant for porous surfaces, an isolating layer for tempera paintings, a base for pigmented inks, a protective layer for collograph plates, and a warm varnish for wooden floors and furniture. As it is prone to darkening with age, it is not recommended as a varnish for oils, and its solubility can reduce over time. There are various grades of shellac. When mixed with alcohol, it may initially form a cloudy mixture, due to traces of wax in the shellac, but this should become clear once it has dried. The highest grades of shellac are Clear Dewaxed Shellac, which has been de-coloured using the carbon filtering method, Lemon Shellac, and Orange Shellac, which are pale in colour. Button Shellac is less refined and therefore produces a reddish varnish. It was, in fact, widely used as a red dye before synthetic dyes became available. Learn More

Shellac is a natural resin that is deposited by the female lac insect on the branches of trees in India and Thailand. It is soluble with alcohol, but not with mineral spirits or turpentine. It forms a tough yet flexible film, with many applications. It is suitable as a top coat for gilding when applied thinly, a sealant for porous surfaces, an isolating layer for tempera paintings, a base for pigmented inks, a protective layer for collograph plates, and a warm varnish for wooden floors and furniture. As it is prone to darkening with age, it is not recommended as a varnish for oils, and its solubility can reduce over time. There are various grades of shellac. When mixed with alcohol, it may initially form a cloudy mixture, due to traces of wax in the shellac, but this should become clear once it has dried. The highest grades of shellac are Clear Dewaxed Shellac, which has been de-coloured using the carbon filtering method, Lemon Shellac, and Orange Shellac, which are pale in colour. Button Shellac is less refined and therefore produces a reddish varnish. It was, in fact, widely used as a red dye before synthetic dyes became available. Learn More

Microcrystalline Wax is related to paraffin wax, and is used as a plasticiser in some recipes. It is characterised by the fineness of its crystals in contrast to the larger crystal of paraffin wax. It is generally more viscous, denser, tackier and more elastic than paraffin waxes, and has a higher melting point. Learn More

Paraffin Wax is a by-product of the petro-chemical industry. It has a low melting point of 50-60°c and a brittle texture, making it unsuitable for encaustic painting or as an additive to oil paints, but it can be used to impart softness to lithographic crayons. As a petroleum product, it is more inert than animal or vegetable waxes, and is therefore not saponified (turned into soap) by alkali substances. Learn More

Ammonium Carbonate is a highly Alkaline substance that reacts with the lactic acid present in casein to form a robust binder for tempera paints. It should only be used in a well-ventilated area, please see below for the Material Safety Data Sheet. Learn More

Acticide SPX Preservative Learn More

Carrageen Moss is a seaweed that is gathered from the Irish coast, whose natural thickening properties are often exploited by the food industry. It is also used as a size in traditional paper marbling, as it allows colours to float and be manipulated on the surface of the water. Learn More

Casein is a protein derived from dried milk, which has been used in painting since ancient times. It can be combined with Ammonium Carbonate to form an emulsion, which acts as a durable, non-resoluble binder for pigments, producing a matte, fast-drying paint, similar in appearance to egg tempera. We use casein as a binder for our L. Cornelissen & Son Pigment Colour Charts, as it is a medium that clearly showcases the characteristics and behaviour of each pigment in its pure form. Casein paints can be applied in thin layers to watercolour paper, but would require a more rigid support, such as a gesso panel, to be applied thickly, as the comparative inflexibility of the paint layer means that it can be prone to cracking. Subsequent layers of paint should be more diluted to aid adhesion, and impasto effects are not recommended. It is possible to varnish casein paintings using an acrylic or damar varnish to obtain a glossy surface if desired, although this is not a necessary step. Casein can also be used as an ingredient in gesso, and is a suitable binder for fresco secco techniques.

Some pigments may require a wetting agent in order to fully disperse within the binder, in which case alcohol may be used.

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Isinglass is derived from the dried swim bladders of fish, with Salianski Isinglass being the highest grade available. In the Russian Icon tradition, it commonly provided the glue component in gesso recipes, and was sometimes mixed with pigment to make tempera paints, due to its high binding strength. It can be used to make a pale, clear glue, which is less prone to darkening than other animal glues, and which is particularly flexible, making it a useful material for repairing textiles. Learn More

Parchment Clippings, usually waste goatskin vellum, were utilised throughout the Middle Ages to make an animal hide glue. This continued to be commonly used as a sizing for canvas before rabbit skin glue came to prominence in the nineteenth century. Parchment glue is comparable to isinglass glue, as it also produces a very pale, almost transparent glue with a degree of flexibility. Our parchment clippings are a mixture of vellum scraps, and may include goatskin, calfskin and sheepskin. Cennino Cennini gives a recipe for gesso using parchment in his treatise about painting; please see below for our recipe. Learn More

By Pip Seymour. The Artist’s Handbook provides artists with in-depth, practical information on the materials, equipment and skills necessary for all areas of artistic practice. Topics covered include advice on how to select appropriate art materials, including paints, brushes, canvases and drawing materials; techniques for making your own paints, glue, varnishes and paper; advice on how to achieve the best results from both manufactured and hand-made materials; the best methods of storing and preserving finished artworks, and health and safety precautions. (520 pages) Learn More

By Mark David Gottsegen. A guide to artists’ materials as well as a thorough resource presenting techniques for using them and recipes for making them. (355 pages) Learn More

Impressionists' Palettes of Light by Patricia Railing. This little book reproduces palettes by several of the plein-air Impressionist painters, describing the pigments used, and includes short excerpts by the scientists whose work was the foundation of the new painting – on complementary colours, optical mixing, and the pigment-colour correspondence. It closes with colour swatches of the pigments, provided by the London artists’ colourmen, L. Cornelissen & Son. Learn More

Roberson Glass Mullers are handmade using high quality-glass. 

Mullers act as flat-bottomed pestles, which are used to grind pigment into a binding medium, suspending it evenly to create a uniform covering of binder around each pigment particle. Using a muller and slab, rather than simply mixing pigment and binder together, will create a more homogenised and stable paint. 

Roberson Glass Mullers are handmade using superior boro silicate laboratory glass, which is 40% harder, more heat resistant, and offers better clarity than soda-lime glass. The base of each muller is ground perfectly flat, and sand-blasted to create a fine tooth to facilitate the grinding of pigments.

Use in conjunction with a Cornelissen Glass Slab to make paint efficiently. The sand-blasted texture of the muller and plate helps to push and distribute the pigment throughout the binder quickly. This will mean less grinding, and more painting! 

NOTE: Sizes may vary slightly as these are handmade products. 

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Cornelissen Glass Mullers are handmade using superior boro silicate laboratory glass, which is 40% harder, more heat resistant, and offers better clarity than soda-lime glass. The base of each muller is ground perfectly flat, and sand-blasted to create a fine tooth to facilitate the grinding of pigments. The tall handle features an ergonomic top, to ease fatigue when grinding large amounts of pigment. Mullers act as flat-bottomed pestles, which are used to grind pigment into a binding medium, suspending it evenly to create a uniform covering of binder around each pigment particle. Using a muller and slab, rather than simply mixing pigment and binder together, will create a more homogenised and stable paint. Use in conjunction with a Cornelissen Glass Slab to make paint efficiently. The sand-blasted texture of the muller and plate helps to push and distribute the pigment throughout the binder quickly. This will mean less grinding, and more painting! Learn More

A glass slab with wooden cradle for the grinding of pigments.

The friction created between the sand-blasted surfaces of the glass slab and muller facilitates the thorough mixing of pigment and medium, creating a consistent and strong paint body. This slab can be used to manufacture many types of paint including watercolours, egg tempera and oils.

Mulling is of particular importance when making oil paint; simply mixing pigment and oil together using a palette knife will result in an unstable substance with poor plasticity, which contains a large amount of excess oil and unevenly distributed pigment particles. Thorough mulling in a figure-of-eight motion will enable the pigment to be fully combined into the binder, strengthening the resultant paint film.

PLEASE NOTE: The separate glass slabs are in stock but it is a call to order item due to the fact that we cannot guarantee its safe delivery, however well we package it. Please ring us to discuss your delivery options. In combination with the glass frame, delivery is more secure but we still cannot guarantee a delivery without breakage.

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Beeswax is derived from melted honeycomb, and is available in two grades. Bleached Beeswax Pellets are white, having been bleached by the sun, and are an appropriate choice for using with pale colours, although they may revert to yellow over time. Natural Beeswax Pellets are yellow in colour, and offer a more flexible structure with a higher resin content. Beeswax has a melting point of 63-66°c, and may turn brown if over-heated. It is the most widely used wax in artists' materials, having a wide range of applications. Please see below for more details.

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Beeswax is derived from melted honeycomb, and is available in two grades. Bleached Beeswax Pellets are white, having been bleached by the sun, and are an appropriate choice for using with pale colours, although they may revert to yellow over time. Natural Beeswax Pellets are yellow in colour, and offer a more flexible structure with a higher resin content. Beeswax has a melting point of 63-66°c, and may turn brown if over-heated. It is the most widely used wax in artists' materials, having a wide range of applications. Please see below for more details.

 

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Carnauba Wax is the hardest wax commonly used in the production of artists' materials, with a melting point of 83-86°c. It is derived from a tree native to South America, and is available in a natural colour (grey), or a refined colour (pale yellow). Small amounts of carnauba wax are commonly used in both oil painting mediums and encaustic painting, usually in conjunction with beeswax to add toughness, durability and sheen to the paint film. It creates an inflexible surface, so works best on rigid supports such as gesso panels, and it should be noted that it will raise the melting point of encaustic mixtures. It can produce a glossy finish; as such it is used in waxes and polishes for shoes, cars, musical instruments, furniture, and wooden floors, especially when mixed with beeswax and turpentine. Learn More

Carnauba Wax is the hardest wax commonly used in the production of artists' materials, with a melting point of 83-86°c. It is derived from a tree native to South America, and is available in a natural colour (grey), or a refined colour (pale yellow). Small amounts of carnauba wax are commonly used in both oil painting mediums and encaustic painting, usually in conjunction with beeswax to add toughness, durability and sheen to the paint film. It creates an inflexible surface, so works best on rigid supports such as gesso panels, and it should be noted that it will raise the melting point of encaustic mixtures. It can produce a glossy finish; as such it is used in waxes and polishes for shoes, cars, musical instruments, furniture, and wooden floors, especially when mixed with beeswax and turpentine. Learn More

A pure form of glue from animal tissue. Used for sizing paper. Used in gliding and for weak sizes in isolating layers in tempera painting. Learn More

Gelatine Capsules Learn More