Home made vermilion paint. (Top row, second from left).
Vermilion, applied with sponge to journal page.
'Navigate,' finished art journal page.
I made my own watercolour paint from pigment and binder today. It was a lot of fun.
Here's the recipe I used:
For the Binder:
1 tablespoon: gum arabic
1 teaspoon: glycerin
half teaspoon: honey
1 drop: lavender oil
1 drop: ox gall.
Dry colour Pigment:
1.5 tablespoon: vermilion powder.
I deviated from the recipe in that I used less pigment and then adjusted my amount of binder to suit. I transferred the left-over binder to a bottle so that I could use it for another colour later. I probably used about 1 tablespoon of powder and this gave me about 2.5 pans of paint.
True vermilion pigment is very expensive and toxic, with high mercury content, so the powder I used was imitation vermilion.
Vermilion was used extensively in the Medieval period and so suits the Medieval imagery of the boats, which was a picture from a child's book. Its a section of the Medieval Bayeux tapestry. This tapestry depicts the Norman conquest of England.
Its quite simple to make watercolour paint and I'll definitely do more colours. I think it works out much less expensive than buying pans or tubes of paint....if you already have the ingredients.
It was a good day to stay indoors and make paint...it was so dull and wet outdoors!!
Bye for now.
Link to you tube videos on making paint.
Link to you tube videos on making paint.
3 comments:
What an incredibly interesting post. I never knew about any of this.. Very cool making your own paints and the colours are so vivid and beautiful! Gorgeous page...love the orange and that magenta too!
Hugs Giggles
I love the idea of making your own paint, and vermillion is a wonderful colour. Does the paint set hard after it is mixed? Have fun if you make more. Enjoy your weekend.
neat :) going to have to try this one day
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