Intermediate 3 – Week 1
Painting with Home Made Pigments
First lesson in a new term (oh how that summer break seemed sooooo long). Our teacher thought it would be good to start with some fun. She brought in 6 bottles / jars containing pigments that she had made at home.
We started off painting square swatches to see the colours of the various pigments. We then had to guess what she had used. This was a mater of looking at the colours and sniffing the paints (which was not very pleasant for one of the pigments).
The Painting
The painting below has a row of swatches along the top and two quick sketches – the one on the left is painted using the home made pigments and the one on the right is painted using my normal paints.
Pigments
The pigments used were made from:
- A) Blueberries
- B) Cabbage (rather smelly)
- C) Paprika
- D) Beetroot
- E) Turmeric
- F) Charcoal
I found it hard to get a strong tone with the home made pigments. I went over and glazed some of the leaves on the left to make the colour stronger.
It was interesting playing with natural pigments. Not sure I would give up my Winsor and Newton paints. But I think I will have a go at mixing my own pigments and painting with them. (If I do I will add it to this blog post).
Update: Mixing Pigments at Home
I had a go at using a mixture of spices, teas and fruit to make some pigments. I painted a swatch of each.
The columns are all using the same pigment. The top row has a strong mix, the middle row has the pigment mixed with some water (lighter tone) and the bottom row is the pigment after it was allowed to rest over night (in many cases the spices had dried out and extra water was needed). I also glazed the thop half of the top row, adding another wash to make it darker.
The materials used are listed below
(they are hidden to see if you guess what was used)
A) Smoked Paprika
B) Ground Tumeric
C) Hot Chilli Powder
D) Ground Ginger
E) Coffee Grinds
F) Green Tea
G) Blueberries
A&G) A mix of Smoked Paprika and Blueberries