Invited by Juma Al Maskari, I visited the Sultanate of Oman in February 1992 for the first time. Arriving in Oman, I was confronted by Juma's brother, Salim Al-Maskari, a PDO geologist, with the question "What do you know about the geology of Oman." In his opinion, one can only understand and truly experience Oman if one knows its geology. I quickly realized that his statement was correct. The colors and thus the atmosphere of the landscape was dominated by very pale but at the same time intense hues that had nothing to do with the earth pigments which I had brought from Europe.

Over the next 2 weeks we went in search of different color values, c??overing more than 4000 kilometers off-road, and gathered 23 different rocks, clays and sands. The first step of our work was done, now the minerals had to be pulverized. Of course this was not any professional, mechanical equipment available, so we used a simple household appliance: a brass mortar. After a week, all of the minerals had been processed into powdered pigments. We decided to now demonstrate the suitability of Omani earth pigments for artistic purposes with practical examples. To learn as much as possible about the various pigments and their particular qualities, we made tests with different binding agents, the oil content varying in turn. If Omani pigments with mixed with water and an acrylic binder, they became quite dark, and ...