Creating your own paint is a great way to cut costs while exerting greater control over the shades and effects you desire. Dry pigment powder can be combined with binders to create a variety of painting media, from oils to acrylics, and you usually need just a small amount of pigment. (Keep in mind that the amount of binder will vary depending on the pigment used.) Like paint, however, the quality of powders is wide ranging in order to suit projects from crafts to fine art. No matter what powder you favor, you should always handle these particles carefully and protect yourself from inadvertent inhalation. Review our picks of the best powdered pigments to find the one that suits your needs.

Archaeologists from the Autonomous University of Barcelona discovered ancient engravings that are around 14,000 years old, the researchers announced in a statement.

The Upper Paleolithic–era engraving was found near the city of Lleida, which is about an hour away from Barcelona. The archaeologists had been working on the site for some time, having previously discovered the partial skeleton of a woman the researchers have dubbed Linya, her name a reference to the cave she was found in, Cova Gran de Santa Linya.

The engravings, though found at the same site, predate Linya by a few of centuries, according to the carbon dating research. According to the archaeologists, the fragment helps put together a larger tapestry of the lives of the first settlers of Spain’s northeastern region.

Jorge Martínez-Moreno, a researcher who helped found the engraving, said in a statement, “There are elements and visual resources with which to narrate stories or specify spaces that denote that the person or persons who executed them were intelligent and technically skilled, and that combining few lines were capable of generating visualizations with a high empathic content that we have been able to decode thousands of years later.”

While the naked eye can’t quite make out the engraving, a 3D scan helped reveal the figure that was a Pyrenean ibex colloquially known as a bucardo.

Today’s Featured Deals

In Case You Missed Yesterday’s Most Popular Deals

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American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson for $1.99

A Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman for $1.99

Straight from the Horse’s Mouth by Meryem Alaoui & Emma Ramadan (translator) for $4.99

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde for $1.99

French curator and archaeologist Jean-François Charnier has been indicted amid an investigation into the the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s acquisitions of allegedly looted Egyptian antiquities.

Charnier is an adviser for the French Agency for AlUla Development, an agency that develops cultural projects in Saudi Arabia. He was brought into police custody earlier this week for questioning and was officially indicted on Thursday on charges of  “laundering by facilitating the false justification of the origin of the property of the author of a crime or an offense,” the French outlet Le Monde first reported.

Charnier is currently under judicial supervision, according to the report. Noémi Daucé, a curator at the Louvre and cultural heritage expert, was also detained by authorities on Monday for questioning. She was released on Wednesday without being charged.

The two scholars were involved with the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s acquisitions of ancient artifacts while working at Agence France-Muséums (AFM), a private consultancy firm contracted to review the provenance records of artifacts being considered for the Emirati museum’s collection ahead of its opening in 2017.

Both experts worked with Jean-Luc Martinez, the Louvre’s former director, while he served as president of the agency’s scientific committee between 2013 to 2021, running concurrently with his tenure at the Paris museum. Martinez co-chaired the committee that approved acquisitions for the Louvre Abu Dhabi. He stepped down from his position at the museum in 2021.

Keep those fingers clean: Pick up a tortillon or a blending stump to blend, soften, and smudge your creative marks. Made of paper that is compacted and shaped into a pencil-like design, these handheld implements look similar but are used for different effects, most commonly with dry media such as charcoal, graphite, and pastel. A tortillon is hollow, features one pointed end, and is shorter, lighter, and less smooth than a blending stump; it is ideal for applications requiring precision, and it can create interesting textures. A blending stump is a solid tool that’s pointed at both ends and ideal for smooth blending; it can be cleaned and sharpened with sandpaper. Blending stumps usually have a number on them indicating their thickness, with #1 being the slimmest and #8 the chunkiest. Explore the characteristics of both with our favorite products, below.

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The Headlines

THE WAR IN UKRAINE. The founder of Manifesta, Europe’s roving art biennial, Hedwig Fijen, has proposed holding its 2028 edition in Ukraine, with the aim of helping to “rebuild and re-strengthen the cultural ecosystem and infrastructure” in the country, Artnet News reports. (Its current iteration just opened in Prishtina, Kosovo.) Meanwhile, an Annie Leibovitz photoshoot of Volodymyr and Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s president and first lady, for Vogue, has sparked controversy, with some commentators, and some Republican politicians, slamming it, Artforum reports. And critic Jason Farago has a lucid dispatch from Ukraine, reflecting on the power of culture amid a military conflict. “Through art we establish similarities between past and future, near and far, abstract and concrete, that cast received certainties into doubt,” he writes. “We look and listen in a way that lets thinking and feeling run parallel to each other.”

RECENT ACQUISITIONS. The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has acquired a showstopper of a painting by the 19th-century Austrian artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Fort Worth Business reports. Titled Dog Guarding a Basket of Grapes (1836), it features grapes that look juicy enough to pluck off the canvas and a dog that, frankly, you could probably brush aside. The work has not been exhibited publicly in more than 50 years, and is the first piece of Austrian authorship to enter the Kimbell’s collection. Meanwhile, after sending three works from its collection—by Cézanne, Matisse, and Renoir—to auction, raising some $51.2 million to diversify its holdings, the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio has revealed some of its recent acquisitions, KTNV 13 Action News reports. They include an a lively Grace Hartigan, titled Harvester, from 1966.

The Digest

Curtains are being raised everywhere this weekend! But like Jens Lehmann, here at the Ramble instead of pulling it back we’re chainsawing our way through it instead.

Pete, Luke and Jim discuss what they’re rubbing thighs over this weekend, with one particularly troubling answer (ahem, Pete). Plus Man City initiate real-life Terminator 2, Alexandre Lacazette goes full Nicolas Cage and a non-league chairman picks up an ex-Serie A player while out walking his dog…

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School board elections are crucial. They have always been important, but in a time of increased censorship, with big money funding campaigns by right-wing activists at the local board level and newly-elected board members choosing to overreach in their power to remove books, there has never been a more vital time in American history to know who is representing your tax money and values.

While we know what school boards do, how do we know the rest of what is necessary to elect qualified, competent individuals for school boards? What if you happen to be a person interested in running for school board?

Enter The School Board Project.

Thanks to the help of volunteers and partners, we’re building a massive database of every school board, school board election, and related information for anyone to access. This simple database provides information that is challenging to find in isolation, let alone in a large, collective, searchable, and sortable way. Because this is the work of a small group of individuals with limited time, it is and will be a slow process, but we’ll release information in batches. The methodology for determining which states to prioritize is both an art and a science: these are states with high censorship rates, active censorship groups, and upcoming elections worth preparing for, either as a voter or a candidate.

The School Board Project allows anyone to download the spreadsheets and add any relevant information that helps them. For example: individuals or groups may include the names and stances of those running for boards in the sheet to help guide voters and/or as a means of tracking the kind of topics that are producing the most discussion in those districts. It can be useful for those considering a run for school board to collect information about what they need to do to become eligible or how long they have to prepare for a run. The possibilities here are wide open.

So you’ve seen Jordan Peele’s Nope and you’re looking for what to read next? Here are a few ideas. Warning: minor spoilers connected to the themes of the movie Nope to follow.

You’re probably here because, like me, you haven’t been able to stop thinking about Nope, the latest film from everyone’s favorite horror director Jordan Peele. There are a lot of moving pieces in Peele’s latest film that all add up to one thought-provoking and terrifying whole. It’s a surprising take on alien invasion/UFO horror. It’s a monster horror film that includes social commentary about media spectacles, exploitation, and more. It’s a horror film about the art of filmmaking. And of course, because it’s Jordan Peele, there are also plenty of moments that are funny.

Part of the reason Nope is living rent-free in our collective minds at the moment is because it is such a unique film. There’s nothing out there that’s exactly like it. However, there are lots of novels that you’re sure to love if you’re looking for fiction that contains certain elements of Nope. So if you’re looking for smart alien invasion/UFO fiction, monster horror with social commentary, or horror novels about filmmaking, I’ve got quite a few recommendations for you! Nothing will be quite the same experience as watching Nope for the first time, but these books come close. And they’re also just excellent in their own right. Read and see for yourself!

Smart Alien Invasion Fiction