As you can see from the photo above, refining the red ochre my brother and I collected from the old mine in Londonderry resulted in a wonderfully bright red pigment. It took longer to dry than I had anticipated, but I am so happy with the results that I’m not put out by that at all.
Interesting note: Even with carefully sorting the rocks collected, the earliest batches of decanted pigment-sediment are still a dark brown colour.
I’m looking forward to using this pigment in my next icon!