Digging for Pigment(Manual work)

Dengkil

This week, we are going to Dengkil to experience digging, finding and gathering of pigments. We parked at a road side of Dengkil. We then take out our tools and boxes to hold the pigment. The day was in the afternoon so it was very hot.

Digging up pigments

Looking for pigment

We started off looking for pigments in our surroundings and theres was alot of pigments just below our feet so we dug those up. After that, we walked around looking for other pigments, smashing and digging to find quality pigments. In order to identify a good pigment, we have to know if the color would stick on our fingers. While searching, Theres alot of sand  and incomplete pigments which are unsuitable at the same time theres alot of good quality pigments that we found.

Chuck of pigment

Sometimes, we dug up various sizes of pigments even as large as the ones in the picture above. Though, most of the colors that we collected ranged from red to orange at this location. There are also different types of color in other parts of the road side but it requires us to cross roads and is quite far. 

A mountain of pigments

Pigment everywhere

As we move along the road, to the location of other colored pigments. We dug up more pigments along the way and tossed it in the drain for later to pick up.We climbed a mountain to discover whitish and purplish pigments and it was filled with a lot of it. The day was also getting extremely hot and it was very hard to climb. We were exhausted while digging for pigments there but we had collected a whole lot of it.

Pigments collected

Filling up the containers

Labled and complete

After the experience, we had launch in a random mamak stall but the food there was expensive. We drove back to Suhu workshop after that and help take out the collected pigments from the trunk of the car. Overall, we had alot of pigments collected in plastics as well as alot of chucks of pigments from Dengkil. Then, we took our containers and filled them with pigments. After filling them up with different colored pigments we then labeled the pigment color and location. The lid is kept open so that water and oil can evaporate. We left it there overnight and went back to our college. It was an interesting and very tiring experience. This also tells me how hard it is for artist in the past gets their colors without advanced technology.