The company now uses about 36 grams of the iron oxide pigment reclaimed from Sunday Creek to produce one tube of oil paint in hues such as orange yellow, orange, orange red, deep red, and violet.

Rand’s tubes carried inside them another crucial element as well: new colors. Paint pigments had remained nearly unchanged since the Renaissance. Since oil paints were time-consuming to produce ...

It is true, though, that Messina did first come across oil painting in the Netherlands. He went on to tweak the recipe, by adding lead oxide to create a honey-like paint (called “oglio cotto ...

Those pigments were then sent to Gamblin, an oil paint ... three-tube set, which retails for $42, includes hues of brown ochre, rust red and iron violet, all crafted from the same iron oxide ...