earth pigments and handmade paint

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

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

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!

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.  

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.

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.

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.  :)  

Madison Woods wrote:
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.

Nicole Alderman wrote:

Madison Woods wrote:
Will the paint still work, or are the humectant properties of the honey destroyed by fermentation?

Hi Nicole! I have used my binder when it was smelling a bit off, but it hadn't gone quite vinegar yet. It worked then. I'm not sure if it will work well or not at that point, but it's worth an experiment to see if it will. But maybe make some new to try alongside to compare. With oil paints, I know the walnut oil can go rancid and smell horrific. But the smell will dissipate and it doesn't affect the paint because it was rancid. No idea how fermenting will affect the watercolor binder, though. If you try it, please let us know how it went.

Nicole Alderman wrote:
I'm honestly not that well-acquainted with watercolors, so I'm not really sure how to gauge how well they worked. ...
... color will look deep, but ends up being super light and not applying easily. It makes painting tricky, but I don't think that has anything to do with the gum arabic solution.

But, I'm also just not that accustomed to watercolors, so I really don't know what I'm looking for in good watercolors. My experience with watercolors is the Crayola paint trays from when I was a kid, and the watercolor paints I made.

I attached both my "color test" dragons, and then the final dragon painting. (I didn't want to paint my sketch until I was sure the paints looked good together, and that I had relatively good control of the paint!)

r ranson wrote:Love it!  Dragons!

One of the things I love most about handmade watercolours is the personality and participation they have.  Mass manufactured paints are lovely, but bland in that each paint falls into such a narrow range of behaviour. Handmade paints have opinions!


Harder to pick up the pigment, like from the dry watercolour cake/pan?  More sugar/honey will help, but too much will stop it drying into a pan.

From what I've read of people making their own paints, eventually they start to adjust the ratios of the binder to match the pigment.  But it doesn't seem like everyone does this so I don't know how much difference it makes.

Sometimes I put a drop of honey in the water I am painting with.  I don't know if it helps, but it feels like it does and it feels easier to wet the next day.