我曾看过师长们把传统中国画颜料施洒在纸上，然后拿到太阳底下去曝晒。没有多久，几乎所有的色彩都褪差不多了。看来这些传统国画颜料是靠不住的，不经久。怪不得现今吾人看到齐白石的那些花卉，墨迹犹存，可是几乎看不到那些叶片的本色了。

基本上来讲，墨是千年不褪的，可是使用的颜料如果不是矿物质的就容易褪色，颇令人烦恼。现在最进步的颜料据说是由原油中提炼出来的，听说也能耐千年而不褪呢。

对于用色，我人并无任何禁忌，什么颜料都用上，就怕不能耐久。

I used to see my teachers apply traditional Chinese pigments to paper, and then dry the paper out under the sun.Before long, almost all the colors had faded into uniformity. That's when I realized that the pigments used in traditionalChinese paintings are very unreliable. No wonder there when we look at flowers painted by Qi Baiyan, although theink lines still remain, the original colors of the leaves are almost invisible.

Although ink basically does not fade even after a thousand years, pigments that do not contain mineral matterreadily fade, which has long been a thorny problem for art-lovers. Nowadays, however, contemporary pigments are said to be made from petroleum products, and I hear that they can also last for a thousand years without fading.

I don't have any taboos as far as pigments are concerned. I will use any type of pigments, and only hope that theyare enduring.@

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