earth pigments and handmade paint

I made the blue indigo powder from woad a few years back.  much easier than expected, but it needs reactivating to be used as a dye.

r ranson wrote:do you live where woad is a weed?

Sure wish I did. No woad that I know of out here in NW Arkansas (USA). But I do have woad seeds too. Maybe I'll get them both growing next year!

I stumbled on some tutorials for getting blue pigment for paint making from woad.  The method he uses is more traditional and less chemical than the ones I tried.  

r ranson wrote:  The method he uses is more traditional and less chemical than the ones I tried.  

Thanks for sharing. I’m definitely interested in more traditional and less chemical.

I have a few woad plants growing in a pot. When I saw the video, I understood my plants still need to grow a lot!
And then I saw what he did with the leaves ... I hope someone else will do that for me It's okay my nails are sometimes a little dark along the edges (from garden work), but I don't want to have blue hands!

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:I have a few woad plants growing in a pot. When I saw the video, I understood my plants still need to grow a lot!
And then I saw what he did with the leaves ... I hope someone else will do that for me It's okay my nails are sometimes a little dark along the edges (from garden work), but I don't want to have blue hands!

LOL, when I make blue stain from the Asiatic dayflower petals, my hands get pretty blue unless I'm wearing gloves. So, if I end up with blue hands whenever I finally get to try this, I'll just live with blue hands for a while, hahaha. I think the woad and indigo stains for a lot longer than the dayflower petals do, though.

When I work with indigo or woad, I should wear gloves, but they always have holes in them, so I don't.  kneeding the woad was the worse and my hands were green for about 2 days.  But I didn't mind as it's only temporary and I got to play with woad.  

Indigo stain washes off my hands within 12 hours - but I'm on a farm so I'm doing a proper hand wash (20 seconds and lots of olive oil soap) at least once an hour to protect against some of the less pleasant things chickens can give us.  

r ranson wrote:When I work with indigo or woad, I should wear gloves, but they always have holes in them, so I don't.  kneeding the woad was the worse and my hands were green for about 2 days.  But I didn't mind as it's only temporary and I got to play with woad.  

Indigo stain washes off my hands within 12 hours - but I'm on a farm so I'm doing a proper hand wash (20 seconds and lots of olive oil soap) at least once an hour to protect against some of the less pleasant things chickens can give us.  

I can live with it for a few days. But, if I'm blue-or-green handed, if I time it just right, then they'll serve as conversation starter at my studio on a Saturday, haha!

Oooh, this sounds like fun!
Making paint entirely from the land I live on appeals to me.  Very much so.  I'm eager to try some of the methods discussed here.  I've been using a rock and an old tile to grind stones for pigment, and sometimes using water to settle out the bits.  This has been adequate for my needs; adding to clay for color and temper, and to store-bought wall paint.  Any bits that make it through aren't big enough to bother me.  In an art paint, I know it would annoy the crap out of me.

Has anyone played with using pine resin in their paints?  I'm assuming not a great choice for watercolor, since it's not water soluble... though perhaps there could be some magical intermediary.  Either way, I'm not very good with watercolors, and would prefer making a paint I'd want to use.  Also, I have a lot of pine resin and love working with it.

Anna Merkwelt wrote:Oooh, this sounds like fun!
Making paint entirely from the land I live on appeals to me.  Very much so.  I'm eager to try some of the methods discussed here.  I've been using a rock and an old tile to grind stones for pigment, and sometimes using water to settle out the bits.  This has been adequate for my needs; adding to clay for color and temper, and to store-bought wall paint.  Any bits that make it through aren't big enough to bother me.  In an art paint, I know it would annoy the crap out of me.

Has anyone played with using pine resin in their paints?  I'm assuming not a great choice for watercolor, since it's not water soluble... though perhaps there could be some magical intermediary.  Either way, I'm not very good with watercolors, and would prefer making a paint I'd want to use.  Also, I have a lot of pine resin and love working with it.

I think experiment and see what works for you! Pine resin might work as a stiffener for oil paints, but I have never tried it to see how it might work. I'd be interested to hear about your experiences, whatever you do. Sometimes having the grit in the paint works well in some applications for art, too, so it doesn't have to be a smooth paint. I do wash mine in water to settle out the heavier bits when I am making paint, though, because I do like the smoother paint for the most part. And I add clay and limestone to the indigo I recently tried, and found that it helps give it body that I like.

One day I'd like to tint wall paint for painting my own walls with the earthy colors of the land around me.

Madison Woods wrote:

I think experiment and see what works for you! Pine resin might work as a stiffener for oil paints, but I have never tried it to see how it might work. I'd be interested to hear about your experiences, whatever you do. Sometimes having the grit in the paint works well in some applications for art, too, so it doesn't have to be a smooth paint. I do wash mine in water to settle out the heavier bits when I am making paint, though, because I do like the smoother paint for the most part. And I add clay and limestone to the indigo I recently tried, and found that it helps give it body that I like.

One day I'd like to tint wall paint for painting my own walls with the earthy colors of the land around me.

Absolutely, *always* experiment!  Even if given a tried and true recipe.  And especially if told not to...
I've no experience making paint from scratch.  Which might be beneficial, who knows.  From what I'm reading, it seems paint is essentially:  a base (for ease of application) and a glue (for adhesion,) with pigment &/or other additives for color &/or desired effects.  Picking compatible elements in appropriate amounts *should* produce paint.  Sounds easy said that way.  I'm not expecting it to be simple, though human have been making paint for an awfully long time.   Learning from their mistakes, hopefully I can avoid using poisonous or caustic ingredients.

Whilst I experiment, if anyone happens to have insight on the use of pine resin, I'm sure it'd still be timely and appreciated.

As for the wall paint... That turned out better than I'd hoped.  Now I'd like to make more colors to use in other rooms.  I'm not in a position to build/rebuild the house with more natural materials.  Though this at least helps make the visual/sensory transition from out to in a little easier on me.

This is what I heard on youtube - it may or may not be true.

The sap (gum Arabic) is easily water-soluble and helps the paint adhere to the paper because it's absorbed into the paper as the paint dries.  

The substitutes I've seen suggested have been from the prunis family.  But I haven't found examples of people using them yet nor any reason why pine couldn't be used in its place.  

I have weeping cherry trees but no pigment or gum arabic.  Later I hope to do an experiment with the same pigment and two different saps to see which gives the results I like painting with best.  

This is such a cool thread. I've wanted to do stuff like that, but I'm going to be honest with y'all, I cheat. I get my pigments from natural Earth paint. She's put a ton of work into natural pigments, including a special firing process for some of the minerals which creates blue and green. I know, bad permie, no biscuit. 😁

I've used those to make everything from wood stain to oils to egg paint. I've used the goo from soaked flax mixed with a drop of essential oil to seal and protect the pieces. Seems to be ok so far.

Haven't had a chance to play with pine resin yet.   BUT!... as I was trimming back some silverberry* branches, I found a big gummy blob under an injury.  Decided to play with that first.  
Put a piece of it in a small jar with water to see if it would dissolve.  It absorbed all the water though was too thick to use.  Added more water, it's now soft and gelatinous.  I'll need a bigger jar if I want to add more water, it's expanded quite a lot.

***
What is the consistency to aim for when making the watercolour binder with gum arabic?  Are you thinning it as far as possible (watery) or should it still have some body?
***edit... I'm withdrawing this Q.  The answer I'm learning is "it depends", obviously.  :)  


--> r. ranson - sounds true enough to me.  I realized I didn't clarify very well.  My reading about paint was focused on non-watercolor types.  Perhaps the term I should have used instead of glue was binder.  I was going for simplified in my head, I only dabble with painting and have to stop reading often to look up words.

*common names vary, the tree/shrub is an Elaeagnus.  Either E. multiflora or E. umbellata, both are here.

From the little I've learnt about paint history,  we have only discovered a tiny fraction of the kinds of paint that we could make and there is a strong bias towards the status quo among the more vocal artists.

I suspect that it's because tried and true methods of paint making give predictable results,  so it's scary to experiment.   Even more so in the 20th and 21st century when we are more likely to learn following tutorials instead of learning the foundations beneath the art.

Yeah that's where the practice comes in, so you know how to get consistent results using naturally inconsistent materials. That's what I've found anyway.

Anna Merkwelt wrote:***
What is the consistency to aim for when making the watercolour binder with gum arabic?  Are you thinning it as far as possible (watery) or should it still have some body?
***edit... I'm withdrawing this Q.  The answer I'm learning is "it depends", obviously.  :)  

I do a swatch test to see if the binder was adequate, and that will only be useful to you after you've tried different ratios to see how the differences manifest. But, what I look for is rich enough color that doesn't rub off or smear once the paint has dried. At least with gum Arabic, if you use too much gum, the paint is hard to rewet once you've made it and put it ina  pan. The binder I use for watercolors is gum Arabic, water, and honey. And 3 drops of clove essential oil to each bottle I make. The honey makes it easier to rewet so you can use the paint later. But too much honey makes it sticky. The clove oil helps keep it from getting moldy while the paint is drying in the pans.

I would imagine that you'd still need the honey or some other humectant with any other gum that you'll use like the sap from your shrub. But I don't know for sure. That'll be something to experiment with.

In my tests, if the paint rubs into the surrounding paper of the swatch once it's dry, I needed more gum. If the paint doesn't dry without being tacky, I needed less honey. Unfortunately, until the binder is made, you can't test it as a paint binder. I usually make several bottles of it when I do, so if the swatch test fails, I dump it all back into a pot and adjust the ratios and try again. Once it's good, I 'can' the bottles just as I would if I were making jelly in a water bath and they last on the shelf for a very long time. Once I open a bottle, I'll keep it in the refrigerator, but they last a long time on the shelf after opened, too.