In our hand-made process, the pigment hardly gets pressed at all. The sticks are rolled lightly. It makes them very fluent when you use them. Like soft charcoal. Creating consistency of response across the colour spectrum was a particularly thorny problem for Hersey.
Pigments vary in their physical properties.
Many pigments will hold together after being mixed with water, rolled and dried. Others fall to pieces. For those Hersey adds a little weak starch or gum to give the best response without interfering with the colour. Many of our colours are pure and single pigments, Hersey says. On the whole they are blended, three or four or five different pigments together.