Okay, when I heard about this color I was shocked to find the mineral, above, doesn’t look like the color it supposedly produces, right.  How is it possible that this gorgeous green grey mica-looking mineral turns into this nothing-to-write-home about brown?  Now I know I need to go have a talk with Robert Gamblin, who knows all about color mixing!

Zinnwaldite is a “potassium lithium iron aluminum silicate hydroxide fluoride is a silicate mineral in the mica group.” (Wikipedia.  I am okay at chemistry but not that okay.)   It is not considered a valid mineral species, which, again, doesn’t make sense to me, as it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . Possibly it has to do with the fact that it always occurs within other minerals, including fluorite, topaz and tourmaline.

What is really amazing about this last post, and has been true for many posts as i worked the a-to-z challenge, is what I discovered in the research.  A site called Encycolorpedia, which catalogs colors and gives you the paints and the chemical data and so much more:  “Zinnwaldite brown with hexadecimal color code #2c1608 is a very dark shade of orange. In the RGB color model #2c1608 is comprised of 17.25% red, 8.63% green and 3.14% blue. In the HSL color space #2c1608 has a hue of 23.33 degrees, 69.23% saturation and 10.2% lightness. This color has an approximate wavelength of 605 nm.”

I am not sure how that helps you paint but I know in the conservation business matching colors is critical, and we have needed that kind of data (Munsell) to assist in a match.

I think that Daniel Smith Tourmaline looks much more like it, and would love it if they made a Zinnwaldite Primatek color!

Finally, I found another great site to leave you with as I sign off from a-to-z:  Multicolr Search Lab powered by Multicolor Engine.  pick a color, you color addicts, and play!

DONE with A-to-Z!!!  Now back to our regular programming . . .

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