The making of natural paint series: Natural pigment (part 5)

This article is about natural pigment. The earthen colours that allot of people like indoor are all around us. Pigment can be blood, fruit, vegetables, clay, herbs, rocks etc.! Processing some of them isn't easy but let's see what we can do with normal tools. Basically a pigment is anything that has a colour and can be processed into a useful form.

How is paint made.

You maybe start to wonder why I'm talking about pigments when you want to make paint. The simple reason is that paint consist out of a binder, a filler, a pigment and sometimes a preservative. If you have the pigment part under control you can make any colour you like. I will talk about the others in later articles so you can become a real paint making master.

Natural pigments

How many pigments can there possible be. The list is so long that I only will talk about the easily available pigments for everyone. Things like onion peelings, beetroot, clay and berries are easy to get and can make great paints. Always make a small test batch and let is dry on the wall. The colors can be quite different than you would expect.

• Onion peelings collect allot of peelings of the white onion or the red onion and boil it for some time until the water is coloured. Don't use too much water. Use the pigment water instead of water in natural paint recipes.
• Clay clean the very wet clay with a filter till all sticks and stones are out of the clay. Now add it to the paint. Clay can be a very greyish, yellowish or blue colour great for natural homes.
• Beetroot juice the beetroot and boil it shortly. Use the pigment water instead of water in natural paint recipes.
• Berries do the same as with a beetroot.
• Turmeric can be directly used but is quite expensive to use on big surfaces. It's more for painting.
• Grass everyone knows how hard it is to get grass stains out of your clothes. This shows that it's great for paint. Juice the grass and boil it shortly.
• Carrots do the same as with a beetroot.
• Chalk & talcum can be directly used it gives a nice white colour.
• Charcoal you have to crush it to a fine powder than you can use it.
• Coffee gives a light stain on softwoods. Repeat it to get a darker colour. You can also use the pigment in paint.