design history 2009: ~Kiande~Art Materials History~

Welcome Ladies & Gents to a Timeline of Art Material.

Whom would ever thought that this fella would have started it all:

By bashing some colored rock together he created the first known base of paint.
The Cave drawings represented events in daily life such as the planting of crops or hunting victories.

This cave painting known as 'horse' , was created in 15, 000 - 10, 000 BC. Materials

Theoretically this painting was only made by materials such as colored rock, burnt wood, water, and mud. Not much to make a famous painting!

Here we have the oldest constructed paintbrush known. Located in egypt, this paintbrush is made up of fine reeds that were trimmed at one end to an angle and chews or split to fray the fibers. I wonder how all the egyptians teeth were after all of this?

For the actual application of paint, thicker brushers were made from fibrous wood such as palm ribs, or from bundles of twigs tied together that were beaten at one end to separate the fibers and make a course brush.

This lucky guy here is called a "Lay Figure". Originated in the 1700's , their purpose is to model the behaviour of the human body.
They have transformed in a more economical, and flexible character.

This is the most oldest recoverd pencil known to date. The oldest pencil, lost by a carpenter in the 17th century and found in the roof joists of a house. From 500 to 300 B.C., Egyptians used the first tools later called ‘pencils’ but the pencils painted or inked. They didn’t rub graphite like modern pencils and were made of hollow reeds and tiny brushes.
Romans named the writing instrument, ‘pencillus’, Latin for ‘little tail’.
In 20 B.C., Philip of Thesalonica, a Greek poet, described writing tools made of lead disks.

This is the oldest mention of a pencil-like tool.
In 1564, the modern pencil was born. A great storm blew down a tree in northern England (Cumberland) and exposed a black mineral at the tree’s roots. The local townspeople started marking sheep with it and called it ‘plumbago’, which is Latin for ‘acts like lead.’ Two hundred years later the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele showed that the mineral is graphite, a crystalline form of carbon, not lead.
By the way, the average pencil can draw a line 35 miles (56 km) long.

Bamboo Shoots were used as a calligraphy method in China and Japan in early 1500's. Other materials they had, and still use is horse or hogs bristle. Calligraphy was not only known in the eastern side of the world, it was used for documentation in the western civilization. Ancient writings that are still preserved often used inks based on lampblack (carbon black), a finley ground pigment dispersed in water or oil, and sometimes stabilized with vegetable gum or glue. It was allowed to dry and then mixed with water to form.

Makes you wonder why not human hair? Theres a good reason.

"One drop of ink makes thousand, perhaps millions think."....Lord Byron
Nothing has so affected our lives as the quill pen. "These are the times that try men's souls... "When in the course of human events... "We the People of the United States..." stirring words written by courageous, determined men with the one instrument that is mightier than the sword.The writing Quill pen came into use as early as the seventh century after the Reed pen, and remained the preeminent writing instrument for most of the Western World for over a thousand years.

The best pens were made from the flight feathers of geese.The use of colored fluids for drawing characters on parchment, hide, or cloth was common in ancient Eqypt and China at least as early as 2000 B.C. Ancient writings that are still preserved often used inks based on lampblack.

I don't think there is any limit for ideas to recreating art materials.

Here is an evolutionary paint brush, that allows you to take a snapshot of whatever material, form, or shape, and reproduce that onto a large computer screen if you would say.

I have given following links to videos about this "Camera Paintbrush".