Things get colourful as you head to West Cumbria.

Take a walk along the coastline between Whitehaven and St Bees and you will be treated to a vista of spectacular red cliffs and boulders tumbling down to the Irish Sea.

There is colour in the area’s industrial history as well, with Florence Mine, in Egremont, sinking its first shaft in 1913 to exploit deposits of red iron ore, a process which left its miners - the “red men” - covered head to toe in ruddy dust.

Although the mine finally closed in 2007, a colourful business has lived on in the form of the Florence Paintmakers, who have been using haematite from the mine to make fine artists’ paints since 2012.

The paint making operation is part of Florence Arts Centre, which has been based in the former shower block of the mine since 2011 and which hosts an active programme of workshops, exhibitions, displays and events throughout the year.

Its story began when artist in residence Mat Do suggested the arts centre could make use of the remaining deposits of haematite, which is used to produce a pigment for use in dyes and paints.

Local artist Jenni Payne took on the idea alongside fellow creatives Jill Davis, Margie Foots and Liz Redmayne, initially as a voluntary project to raise extra capital for the centre.

Although her career was in the NHS, Jenni has always been a keen artist, painting nature, people and animals - including Herdwick sheep which are traditionally marked by Cumbrian farmers using paint derived from haematite ore.

"I thought we could try and set up a business using the colour, because it was such a wonderful colour rooted in the landscape,” says Jenni.

“There's something rather special about being able to actually use the colour from the land in your art.”

(Image: Sheenah Alcock)

The paint makers acquired the iron ore left by the mine to begin producing the Egremont Red pigment for use in oil paints and watercolours.

Today Florence Paintmakers are well-known for their red - now used in chalk pastel, watercolours, oils and ink - which has since been bolstered by a range of nine paint and pastel colours, including Honister Green, St Bees Yellow and Kirkby Grey, all made from pigment sourced from Cumbrian mineral deposits.

“We started with the haematite, which is a brick red colour, but very soon people were asking which other colours we could do,” says Jenni, who still sits on the board of the arts centre and helps out with the paint making operation.

"It took a lot of experimentation and trial and error. None of us were paintmakers in the beginning. We accepted the challenge as to whether we could make a business using the local colours and we rose to the challenge.

“It felt like quite an exciting venture and we had great fun doing it and we met some lovely people.”

Florence Paintmakers now employs two part-time staff with the paints either sold at the arts centre’s onsite shop at the mine, via its website or through wholesale to artists’ supplies shops.

These include Rheged, Cockermouth Art Shop, Lakeland Arts and Lowes Court Gallery in Cumbria, as well as Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA).

They have been used by artists including Rachel Gibson, president of the Lakeland Artists Society, and renowned Cumbrian landscape painter Julian Cooper.

The paint making process involves crushing the raw materials - whether that is slate, sandstone or haematite - into a fine dust.

In the case of haematite, which is extremely hard, the initial crushing process takes place off site using specialist equipment.

The materials are then ground for up to two weeks in a grinder at the site and then washed, filtered and sieved.

The pigments are then combined with a variety of natural mediums, including gum arabic and linseed oil, to make the final products.

In total the paintmakers make and sell about 2,500 individual products each year.

(Image: Sheenah Alcock)

"All these processes take weeks, so it's quite difficult to assess how many hours each pastel takes to make, because it's such a labour of love,” says centre director Sue Mackay.

"We've got a growing number of ambassadors who are artists, who come back for our products.

"What better way to paint the Cumbrian landscapes than with art materials that are made from that landscape? It's perfect.
“There are lots of people who have a creative tendency, who either visit us and buy a little sample set or who want to have a go with something which is Cumbria-made and then there's people who buy it from us as a souvenir and buy it for gifts.”

In the future Sue says the ambition is to continue growing the business to the point where it generates profits which can be put towards supporting the other work which the arts centre does.

"The importance of it is that it really sums up this site," says Sue.
"It's absolutely integral to the arts centre because it brings together the science, the history and the art and is a really good symbol of what we're doing here."