Watercolor Paint Recipe

Materials: Glass slab, glass muller, container for paint, sieve, palette knife, mortar & pestle.

Pigments used for swatch: Coreopsis flower & marigold flower (LC).

Ingredients

1 tsp Gum Arabic
1 tsp lake pigment powder

Paint Making Steps

1. Grind down 1 tsp pigment in a mortar and pestle to avoid clumps. Then strain the pigment through a sieve onto a tempered glass slab.

2. Add Gum Arabic alongside the pigment on the glass slab.

3. Use a glass muller to blend and grind the water and pigment into a smooth consistency, until there is little to no grit in the paste, about 20 min total.

4. Scrape your paint into a container of your choice. If you are storing your watercolor in a paint pan you will want to let it dry and harden as well.

Note: The Hollyhock and Black-eyed Susan lake pigments came from full-concentration (FC) dye baths while all other swatches were made from leftover dye baths at low concentration (LC).