I always use safety gear. People who don't end up with nicknames like 'One eyed Pete', or 'Stumpy Joe'. Or 'Counts to nine then has to take his shoes off Dave'. Safety is good.
But then I bought some Naples Yellow the other day to replace an old tube that was running out. The old tube is full of lead antimonate - nasty, lead based, toxic paint. Which handles like a dream and does wonderful things in paintings.
The new tube is some ersatz mix of Titanium white and synthetic iron oxide, which doesn't work wonders. I don't like it.
Which brings me, by a circuitous route, to my point. My first, instinctive reaction was this:
"Given that I'm a responsible adult - no, really - why is someone hindering my right to use paint which, in careful normal use, offers no risk to anyone? I'm not going to smear buckets full of genuine Naples Yellow all over the nearest infants' school. I'm fairly sure I'm not going to spoon it into the coffee of unsuspecting diners when I stop by Wilko for tea and cake. I'm going to try my very best not to force feed it to terrified hostages while dressed as the Joker and holding Gotham City to ransom. So why is it getting harder to buy?"
You should probably read the preceding paragraph in an angry, sputtering, shouty voice for full effect. I've used an appropriate font to help you do this.
But a little internet research - which is my avenue of last resort, and only comes after my customary self righteous, knee-jerk scaremongering - tells me that you can still buy the genuine article online and elsewhere easily enough. Spectrum have taken to selling it in tins to get around the law against selling it in tubes. Obviously, if you buy Naples Yellow in tins you have to tube it all up - thus ironically exposing yourself to more risky lead paint contact.
Pigment manufacturers have slowly stopped making lead based pigments over the past few years, not because of some gigantic plot against the world's artists, but because safety legislation has led to fewer household paint manufacturers using them. The few remaining customers are those art materials firms who make lead based paints. And that's not a big enough market to justify the cost of continued production. Hence the difficulty of finding Flake White, and its rising price.
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| Gentlemen. One of you is an impostor. |
I want to use real Naples Yellow, not some second rate imitation. I want to keep the option of using Flake White. I want to make the informed choice and balance the advantages these pigments offer against the tiny risk inherent in their use.
And while I believed that not being able to was down to the machinations of Eurocrats who've got nothing better to do than fiddle their expenses and think up new ways to annoy me, I could enjoy the full fury of righteous indignation. Finding out that it's all down to blind economic forces caused by safety legislation I can only approve of is somewhat deflating, but at least my blood pressure has stopped spiking now. So, safer on that score too.
Michael Harding's site has got the lowdown on lead carbonate production here.
If you want to know even more about it, there's a great blog post here which also gives handy hints on how to make your own lead carbonate using a scrap yard, horse manure, apple vinegar, and an old fridge. I have a policy of leaving paint manufacture to people whose job it is and who know exactly what they're doing, so I won't be going that route myself.
If you use oil paint and fret about health and safety in your studio, Winsor & Newton have some helpful and informative PDF handouts on their website.
We've come a long way on the safety front. Within living memory, back in the 1930's, you could buy radium toothpaste. Which was presumably quietly phased out when people's jaws began falling off from the resulting radiation poisoning. Travelling by car used to be about as safe as bomb disposal, but since the 70's better auto design, seat belts, air bags, ABS brakes, and drink and drive laws have changed that. Also, people generally don't have to breathe asbestos fibres everywhere they go these days, and that's good too.
Whether we like it or not, we're all a little bit safer now.
But I still want my genuine Naples Yellow.
(PS: You can keep Vermilion. It's got mercury sulfide in it. Now that stuff's dangerous.)
