| Note: |
I painted this crest of a raven as an exercise in crest painting at Freda Diesing School. Traditionally, in northwest coast art, there were very few colors used and almost always these colors were limited to black and red, with the occasional application of blue. The reason for this was due to the fact that black and red were relatively easy to obtain than blue, yellow, purple, green and white, before European trade. Traditionally, blue was obtained from “blue earth” which was a rare form of clay embedded with cupric oxides, available to a select few tribes on the coast. Without trade, the acquisition of blue pigment would have been impossible, but just the same, even with trade, blue pigment was usually only available to the wealthy Simoghets, or chiefs. |
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