Process + Product
Starting the paint-making process includes picking out which pigments you want to work with. Here is a lineup of some of the pigments we experimented with. Most of these pigments are from previous garden harvests while others like turmeric are easily found commercially.
To gain access to the pigments in the plants growing in our garden, we ( and the previous garden crew ) have created lake pigment from dye bath concentrates. This is an extra step that we took to create a collection of paints that reflected our current growing season this Summer of 2023. Details on how to make your lake pigments are available under our projects page on the Textile Dye Garden Website Page.
Pictured above are lake pigments draining from dye concentrate.
In all recipes, we include a step to pre-grind your pigment once more with a mortar and pestle. We include this step as a precaution for homemade pigments to ensure that all pigment granules are as fine as possible and haven't become compacted from humidity.
Pictures of the main tools and ingredients we use in our recipes are included above for reference.
Here is a lineup of some of the various paints we made this summer where the contrast in texture and quality of each paint type is visible.
After all that mulling and blending our paints are placed into appropriate storage to ensure their longevity. Detailed information on storing techniques is included in our downloadable pdf file at the bottom of our project's home page. Once your paints have been stored they're ready for use!