What is ochre?

Ochre is a natural color that comes from special kinds of rock or soil.

Imagine you're playing in the sandbox at the park, you dig around and find some really pretty sand that’s not just yellow, but has shades of red and brown too. That's kind of like ochre! It's a mix of colors found in the ground, and people have used it for thousands of years to paint pictures on walls or even make jewelry.

Ochre gets its color from iron, which is the same metal that makes your mom’s blender super strong. When iron mixes with water and air over a long time, it can turn into different colors, like red, yellow, or brown. It's kind of like how fruit changes color when you leave it on the counter too long.

People used to grind ochre into powder and mix it with oil or water to make paint. They’d use this paint to draw pictures on cave walls, just like how you might draw on your bedroom wall with markers! These pictures told stories about animals, people, and life back then.

Ochre is still around today, and sometimes we can find it in the ground when we dig or build houses. It's a little piece of Earth’s history that we can touch and see every day.