How to Make Paint
What are the ingredients to make paint?
Paint consists of three basic components: a binder, solvent or vehicle, and colorant. The binder is vegetable oil for oil paint. Acrylic resin for acrylic paint. Gums for watercolors and gouache. Proteins, such as casein, animal collagen, or egg yolk for tempera. The solvent or vehicle is water for waterborne paint or hydrocarbon solvents like turpentine or mineral spirits for oil and alkyd paint. Pigments are the colorants in paint. The relative proportion of each component gives each paint its unique properties.
How do I make my own paint?
Making paint can be simple to very complex. It depends on the paint binder and application. Oil paint is one of the simplest paints to make because it only requires two ingredients—pigment and oil. To make oil paint, you start with a pile of dry pigment, add oil dropwise, and mix with a palette knife until you have a smooth, flowing paste. To develop the color of the paste more, grind the paste with a muller on a flat surface such as stone or glass.
How are colors made for paint?
Pigments give paint its color. Pigments initially come in powdered form. For example, a common white pigment is titanium dioxide, black pigment is carbon black, and oranges and yellows are derived from metallic salts or organic chemicals. Pigments are also available as dispersions, which are ready to use by simply mixing with the binder and vehicle of your paint.
Videos on Making Paint
How to Make Oil Paint
How to Make Waterborne Paint—Watercolors and Tempera
Videos on Making Paint
Making Oil Paint with Cesar Santos
Extender Pigments—How They Enhance Your Painting Without Altering Color
On Making Paint
Paint basically consists of two components: pigment and vehicle. Pigment particles do not dissolve in the paint vehicle but are suspended in the liquid. Making paint simply means mixing a solid and liquid component together into a smooth paste. Making paint is easier than you may think. You can start making small batches of oil paint with basic supplies, such as pigment, linseed oil, a spatula, and a clean, flat surface...
This is a tutorial on preparing the grinding tools and dispersing pigments into the water to make your water-based paint. This technique can be used to prepare dispersions of pigment in water to be mixed with gum arabic solution for watercolors, egg yolk for egg tempera, casein solution for casein paint, animal glue for distemper, and use in fresco painting. The same technique can be used to disperse pigments in preparation for making pastels and pigment sticks...
Well, I have been busy recently making paint. I obtained one of the Paint Making kits and read the paint-making instructions in the catalog. After obtaining a dust mask, and a pair of suitable gloves, I began by making a slurry of silicon carbide and grinding that for a while with the muller on the piece of glass included in the kit. It didn't take nearly as long nor as much silicone carbide as I thought it would before the entire piece of glass was nice and frosted...
