basic ingredients!

This zine by Alexandria Rosen explores where this particular hue comes from (spoiler alert! - the little bodies of "scale insects"). It might sound to fantastical, perhaps an urban myth or a rumorish story that gets passed own from kid to kid ("you eat bugs!"), but even our skeptical friends at Snopes have fact checked this one.
This pigment in fact has a very long and venerable history of use in a number of cultures for the purposes of natural dyes.
Click on the image to the right to download a copy of the zine in PDF form to print out and fold up yourself.
- - Click on the image below to read it as a comic online:
