Making Oil Colors
Ever wonder how to make your own oil paint ?
Making oil colors by hand is an excellent opportunity to learn about the singular character of each pigment. Every pigment behaves differently when ground in oil.
According to specific surface and weight one needs more or less oil and arrives at a larger or smaller amount of ready ground oil color. Generally one can count on using two parts of pigment to one part of oil. In each case, only trying out will reveal the actual amounts.
YOU NEED :
- Pigment and oil
- Turpentine
- Tubes or jars
- Mortar and pestle, or muller and marble slab(or glass)
- Filler (extender)
- One long, thin spatula
- Paper for cleaning
DIRECTIONS :
Pour the desired amount of pigment into the mortar and add just a little oil. Start grinding and observe the absorption of oil. Slowly add correspondingly more or less oil until you arrive at a firm, fully saturated paste.
This is a condition in which all pigment particles are mixed evenly in oil, which should be reached after about 15 minutes, using 100 to 200g.
It easily happens that the mixture suddenly seems too liquid and one has run out of pigment to absorb the excess oil.
Therefore it is best to retain some pigment our extender, such as a fine marble dust, which one can add, until one reaches the desired consistency. Small amounts of extender do not change the color perceptibly.
Although the best oil color consists purely of pigment and oil, you can use various amounts of pigment and extender if you like. Avery small amount of an opaque white, e.g. Titanium White, makes translucent pigments opaque.
For storage, tubes are most practical, since the surface of the color cannot dry out like in jars.
To clean the mortar and pestle you will need ample amount s of turpentine or a similar solvent, a lot of newspapers and some paper towels at the end. The mortar should be completely clean and dry before you start with the next color.
OILS :
Linseed Oil is the most common oil used for oil colors. Of the various kinds available, cold pressed linseed oil is the purest. It is of a golden color and is in spite of its yellowing tendency most often used. Stand Oil is highly weather resistant and dries glossy. Linseed oil varnish with cobalt drier is highly recommended for egg-oil emulsions, because it dries quickly and yellows little. Linseed oil varnish is a refined oil used for the standard production of oil color.
Poppy oil dries very slowly and not as hard as linseed oil. It is preferred for light colors, since it is nearly colorless, yellows little and cracks less. Walnut oil dries faster; sunflower oil yellows even less.
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Baruch Shpitz
I would like to know how to make acrylic colors
Thank you in advance
Answer: Go to our page Service > Information and Recipes > Recipes
Robert Lewis
I’ve been searching the web trying to find ways to create my own paint. I think I found just about everything but how to make my own pigments. If you could help me on my journey, it would be GREATLY appreciated.
Irena
Thanks for inspiration!
Lars Johnson
I’ve used Kremer pigments for years now and I find them consistent in quality. I am able to “supersaturate” my palette for a vibrancy previously unattainable. Once I started mixing my own paint I never went back to “tube” paint.
Ron Hicks
Hi,
Just getting into mixing my own oil paint, any thoughts on mixing ratio and applying an oil ground on linen after sizing?
Larry Qualls
Ok, so i don’t have all the answers I want on how to make your own pigments. But I just wanted to share what I do know. Natural pigments can be found in nature. What you will need is: a mortar and pestle. You can usually find these at a kitchen supply store or order a set online for around $15-$20. This is what you will use to grind your pigments. Then you have different choices, depending on wear you live. For your dark brown, light brown, and dark oranges, you can look around the land to find different samples of dirt. You will need to put the dirt in some water and stir it up. Any junk floating on top, skim that off, then take a screen and strain the water dirt mixture into another container. You may need to do this a couple of times to get all the sand, and other pollutants out of the pure soil and water mixture that you want. When you are satisfied, let the mixture settle so the dirt pigment falls to the bottom. Then carefully drain as much water as you can off without loosing your pigment sample. Allow this to dry. Then after it is all the way dry, put into morter and pestel and grind into a fine powder. As you are doing this you may want to start out with a small sample to see how the color changes the more you grind it down. Now on to other colors you can make, To make white, take and grind up used egg shells into a fine powder after washing the shells really well. For Black Take an oil lamp or beeswax (not modern wax candle)candle and take a ceramic dish and hold over the flame. You carefully scrape of the smoke with a hobby knife. Then for reds, get madder root, skin them like you do a carrot grind them down into a pigment. For another black, take grapevines or willow vines, bind them together real tight and put into a casserole dish with a lid. Put in oven on low, and slow cook till they are carbon, not ash mind you. You can take chicken bones and put them into a fire and when they have turned all the way white, take them out and grind them up for another white pigment. Blues are hard to get. You can take azurite which is found around deposits of copper ore and grind them down. You can take the stone called lapiz lazuli and get ultramarine. Other things you can try and experiment with are flowers, berries, roots, barks of trees, burnt peach pits for blacks, black walnuts for a brownish ink or dried pigment, outer brown layer of a onion, beets for magenta dye, try grinding down colored sea shells and see what pigment you get. To get green you grind down a mineral known as malachite. Another green is to somehow soak a piece of copper in acid and allow it to patine (the green stuff like the statue of liberty) and then scrape off with a hobby knife. Sap green comes from the juice of ripe buckthorn berries. Mix the berrie juice with a little alum, which you can find in the spice aisle of any grocery store, and allow it to thicken by evaporation. Saffron for yellow. I’ve yet a lot to learn but this is some of what I know so far. I hope it helps.