Making your own watercolor paints - pt1 (Experiment!)

** I apologize for my creaky chair!! I'll be more careful in the future!

Tools:
Ceramic plate, spatula knife, water, paper towels, empty half-pans or full pans, distilled water, gum arabic, honey, pigments, synthetic brush, scrap paper.

The pigments I used are prussian blue (PB27), Spanish gold ochre (PY42 hydrated) and aluminium metallic pigment.

Both are Canadian shops, I don't know if they ship outside the country.

Music :
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[jtbmetaldesigns]

Making paint is a thinking exercise. Hydrophobic pigments requires more wetting agents, dispersants and mechanical force(glass muller). Also less of the pigment is dispersed in the binder. Also pigment extenders can make difficult pigments work for you. Extenders like calcium carbonate, kaolin clay, and talc.

[TheAndreArtus]

Many pigments such as those that consist of iron oxides (many earth colours) or titanium dioxide are hydrophilic and will thus readily absorb water or disperse into it. Other powders such as the aluminum one you used are hydrophobic and thus require something like a surfactant, wetting agent, or dispersant in order for it to behave as you expect. Your addition of water is actually exasperating the problems you are having with it (11:00).

[michaelannfitzgerald]

This is awesome! I didn't know you could make your own paints, so many possibilities! Thank you for sharing Eve.

[Stressedstitcher]

You could use the flat end of a glass candle holder I've seen someone use that and a glass cover from a picture frame

[orkidbox]

I can imagine how much paint you can get from a jar of pigment. That blue was lovely. I have seen in a book a thing called a muller made from glass that you use to grind the powder and liquid mix together. It should give you a smoother paint mixture.

[cathywhitney]

Wow Eve! Never would have thought to mix my own paint. Really enjoyed watching you do it though. Looking forward to part 2☺. Have a great day.

[TheAndreArtus]

Use a cheap [relatively broad] silicone spatula to collect and pick up the finished paint from the mulling surface, then scrape it into your pan with a smallish palette knife. Whatever is too much to fit in the pan can be transferred into a makeshift palette box made out of any of numerous plastic inserts that bulk up packaging (e.g. chocolate tray). The more paint you can pick up and get into a container the fewer napkins you will end up needing to clean up, and the fewer pigments end up in landfill or down the drain.

[AridescentArt]

So awesome! I watched a video from the frugal crafter and she mentioned you in her description on how to mix paint!!! Gonna try this asap!

[JRTodd]

Chemistry 101. Thank you for sharing this video. That is quite a process.

[kfcphtb]

A great way to mix your paint is to buy cheap white ceramic bathroom tiles. I used to China paint and you have to mix your own pigments with the oil for painting. We used tiles and a different palette knife....a diamond shape one that has an angle. Much easier than a straight palette knife. Thanks for the awesome no.

[BrazoDelDiablo]

Hello, I greatly enjoy watching you make paint, I have a tip for you... dry gum Arabic needs to be dissolved in hot water, to make a solution for watercolor paint you do 2 parts gum Arabic, 4 parts distilled water and, 1 part honey or glycerin (optional) since both honey and glycerin attract moisture you should only use one of them. A couple of clove oil drops will help with the preservation of the solution. Thank you. :)

[creativesolutionsart-ho]

That is a really good plate, flat with a curved edge perfect. Most people use glass cutting boards and I didn’t like that idea because of paint falling off the edge. They also use something called a glass mulcer To crush the paint pigment particles After initially mixing it with the spatula. Then again with the spatula after the muller. These are very expensive little tools, though. I am looking for a two or 3 inch diameter glass paperweight to use instead. And I have my earth pigments ready to go… Thank you, this video got me back on The project!

[owingsart]

Nice job Eve. You made some nice paint here and used a good process. I think you have the right idea, that mistakes happen and we can learn from them. Great job Eve. ~marty

[sueallen]

Every video I've seen doing this have used a big glass bulbous thing, I think it's called hulling where you keep grinding the paint till it's smooth, it takes a while

[patm.]

This was very interesting! I really like the silver. It reminded me of solder...very cool!

[Friedchimkin]

Most all your videos that i saw really inspired me to learn and experiment more and more. Can you make a video about how you start selling your watercolor paint product?
Like hints where to start, what we need expecially on packaging. I wonder how to warp the pan with the paper.
Thank you so much, please to consider it.

[rubenmsk]

It's easier using liquid gum arabic. The problem with the powder one is that you need to rewet it before mixing with the pigment otherwise the paint will crack in the pan if you don't rewet it properly

[diana]

thank you for sharing your experiment. I have considered doing this also. Do think many artists have a little bit of "Leonardo" in them and want to know how things are made. And if could they make something that would be good enough for their use own use. Part of being creative!

[alicem]

Maybe you could try a round glass paper weight to grind the pigment. I was trying to think of something inexpensive that might work! Good luck!

[AafkeVultink]

I use liquid gum arabic, and have no issues there with pigment rolling of, and add a few drops of glycerine and no water because my glycerine and gum arabic are fluid on it's own, I store two dropler pipets I baught at the pharmacy using it only on these two... takes a bit more gum arabic but when you work with the pipet there is little chance in overdoing it... so far no mold yet btw, jay. Oh you can buy micca powders from makup that are lose in the jars... these make a really pretty silver