The smell of earths

I keep most of my raw pig­ments in small glass jars, mixed into a paste with dis­tilled water. Did you know that earth pig­ments have a smell? Of course they do; when you mix them with water, you get a sort of mud, and mud has a smell. The earths have a deep, loamy smell that makes me think of the first artists paint­ing bril­liantly and expres­sively with ochres on cave walls.