I'm pretty sure that 2b pencil at 4:43 was sitting in a cup on my desk unused for more than a few years. It's time to dust things off and turn them into watercolor :)
Oh joy! I've been making my own watercolours for about 50years now - basically because I wanted to keep shades I'd mixed. I was fortunate enough to discover mica powders in Chinese shops and very cheap tubes of watercolour and acrylics. I've always used gum Arabic and glycerine - as advised to by the Chinese owners of the shop. They used rice glue as a binder and the equivalent of glycerine, the texture of her paint was stickier than mine, she gave me some of hers but I never managed to replicate it. I now have many many many home made water colours and irridescents. My 11 year old grand daughter also loves using and making her own. As I have frequently said, I AM a paint peasant - and I still use the cheapest ingredients to get my results. I shall experiment with graphite though as I really love granulation. Please do more of this type of video, my little heart was pounding with delight! As usual - and to be expected - your artwork is superb! Thank you, thank you, really enjoyed this!😁😊
Thank you so much, I definitely recommend experimenting with stuff like graphite and charcoal - the granulation texture can be so interesting! Graphite has such an interesting slightly shiny appearance and it's remarkably easy to work with. Ooh that's so interesting, I've never seen rice glue as a binder. It's so fun to see all the different ways watercolor can be made, from simple to complex, with or without additives/humectants/dispersing agents. Each and every brand, and our own creations, are so unique that each paint maker has a signature feel. Part of the magic of watercolors :D
I was realy excited to see a video on just what we had talked about !!! You were so right on your suggestion to mix gold with blue. The combination is stunning ! So many art channels and CZcamsrs are just dedicated to hauls and "sponsored" products, you are a breath of fresh and wonderfully non-commercial air. Great video
Yeah, us talking about that recently made me really want to paint with that blue-gold mix again! I ended up loving some of the pastel pearl colors I mixed, like pearl white mica and dioxazine violet too. While I was at it I realized I have so many neglected dry art supplies that could be used in a similar way, added to our watercolors for endless unique mixtures. I don't think any pencils, chalk or charcoal in the house are safe from me anymore lol. I get bothered by haul videos that seem to glorify buying things without putting them to good use. I also like to come up with alternate ideas or using supplies for general tutorials, instead of just pushing the sale a product. I'd like to inspire looking around at what we have, maybe grab that poor sad 2b pencil in the desk drawer to upcycle. Have fun :D
@@KimberlyCrick You really are exactly why I come to CZcams...inspiration. Looking forward to your tips on gouache/acrylic and that calcium carbonate idea. Thank you again for all your honesty and wonderful videos ;)
Yes, yes, yes!!! Really want to see more of your paint making experiments! So many art supplies have more to do with brand marketing and packaging that the actual art material is getting pushed to the background. Be good to by-pass all that and just make it myself. TFS!!!
That blue + charcoal bird is gorgeous! Thank you for shining some light on how simple the process can be. It's easy to feel overwhelmed & talk yourself out of doing something fun like this. Personally, I'm enamored now with the idea of turning my old #2 pencils into some epic paint! Thanks!
Making paint is something I always wanted to try just once but like you said it’s so involved and you have to buy so much to get started but this is great! I think I’ll grab some gum arabic and give it a try! Thank you for sharing this!
I would love to see any and all of your paint making experiments! I’ve made a few of my own watercolors recently and really enjoy it, and I love to watch other people experiment ☺️☺️
I usually make my own paints with decommissioned chalk pastels and the usual binder recipe of arabic, ox gall, glycerine and honey. I'd be very interested in a video featuring your experiments (gouache and acrylic? Tell us more!) and, if you have any, your color recipes that have given you the most use in your work other than the blue and gold mica combination.
Not quite the same thing but I've "repurposed" watercolor pencils for years by scribbling a dense spot of color on textured paper and simply using it as a palette with a brush. Very convenient for travel and easier on my hands, plus you can get that soft blended watercolor look. Also really great if you have kids that want to paint.. you can add the pencil spots directly to the bottom or sides of a pre printed or drawn page for DIY "paint with water" sheets.
WoW....I Have searched for about a year to find you.... I was looking for how to make mica powder into a watercolour and non rub-off-able medium! haha And you just gave me SOOO MUCH more information than I expected 👌 thank you so much Xx
I have a lot of old mica from cosmetics companies back when jars of colourful powder were all the rage and used to use them to make my own nail polish, but using them to make paints might be even more fun. I'm not a fan of Arteza as a company but that mica set looks promising too. I love the Coliro paints (round pans) and have almost a full set but there are some gaps in the range. Your golds here look just as vibrant as theirs and at I imagine a fraction of the cost over time, albeit with slightly more effort than adding to basket and waiting for delivery. The arduous process of making paints had always been the barrier for me as I just don't have the physical stamina for all that mulling, but knowing that for some of them you can just pop a couple of ingredients in a pot and mix them up makes this so much more accessible for personal use. Thank you for sharing more of the wonderfully creative things you do, I always thoroughly enjoy your videos.
I had to come back and watch this video again after receiving the charcoal sticks in the box you sent me. I can't believe how much of this video I had already forgotten. Scary! But I'm glad it was here for me as a resource, so thank you!
Thank you for this excellent video. I’m not yet where I want to try mixing my own paint, but really interested in the idea of homemade graphi-tint in a limitless range of colours. Also really enjoyed seeing how your composition mixed vibrant, shiny and muted tones harmoniously together.
Thank you! Luckily there's pre made graphite watercolor too. Even if you don't want to DIY with graphite powder, you could mix PBk10 graphite tube watercolor from daniel smith or schmincke (or the pan form artgraf tin of watersoluble graphite) with any color on your palette for endless graphi-tint colors :D
Once again you have answered questions I didn't even know I had! Love how you come up with fresh content that is off the beaten track but extremely relevant and super helpful! For sure, I would really enjoy seeing a video on your favorite pigment powders. Thank you again so much for continuing to share your knowledge expertise and passion for watercolour.
What a fabulous video! Experimenting is my jam, and I'm so glad I found your channel! I'd love to see more paint making, color mixing videos. Thank you so much for being so awesome! ❤️
This is so interesting! I definitely appreciate the small batch for personal use concept. My primary medium is encaustic and I’ve made paint from so many weird things, from eye shadows to blood. (Not recommend…it cooks on the heated palette). These pigments can be used in so many ways!
How did your experiment with making paint with eyeshadow work out? I have some palettes of dollar tree dry pucklets of eyeshadow I bought intending to discard the makeup and replace it with paint. The colors are super vibrant and mica heavy, so this would be fun to try. I’ve heard though, that makeup usually has some wax or something like that in it that makes it unsuitable for turning into watercolor paint…?
@@jenneke9763 I've had some problems with eye shadows because of the additives like talc and other water-resistant additives like waxes. Loose powder brands work better than compressed ones. It's all a gamble with what ingredients the cosmetic company included - some can completely repel water. Like make it nearly impossible to turn into a paste and the powder just floats on top of any water you add. I wouldn't purposely buy new eyeshadow for watercolor making, but I would totally experiment with any you have!
@@KimberlyCrick Thanks Kim, I’ll be checking out the Michaels shelves for gum Arabic ASAP! This looks like so much fun! Your paintings sold me on trying out the process! And if the eyeshadow is a bust, I’ve plenty of graphite pencils and charcoal ;)
This was super interesting! I'd love to see more of everything you do! Subbing to you right now! I've gotten my gum arabic powder and mixed it with water, glycerine and honey and about to embark on making some water colors. I also am a soap maker and have ALOT of mica pigments and I'm going to use some old metallic eyeshadow too. This video just pushed me off the fence to get to it!! Thanks for sharing!😊❤
Mica pigments just don't need to be mulled. You CAN mull them if you want, but it tends to break the pigment into smaller particles. That makes it less sparkly. I have a muller and glass slab to make paints with, but I never use them for mica. Mixing with a palette knife does the job.
Technically no pigment (already in fine powder form) absolutely needs to be mulled. It's just good for making a really uniform paint and making sure all particles are coated with binder. I've made all sorts of watercolor without mulling, not just mica, including the graphite, pastels or charcoal in the video, but also pigment powders like ultramarine blue, phthalos, magenta, burnt umbers etc. I mention you can also grind them in a bowl, like with a mortar and pestle instead of under a muller (if a smoother more uniform paint is desired), but the point of this video is skipping that. Even palette knife mixing could be optional, if that feels too messy or tedious to someone beginning to experimen with small batch or on-demand colors on a palette during a painting session.
This is fantastic. Loved what you were able to create with the graphite painting! I've wanted to try this sort of thing but really didn't understand how easily it could be scaled down. Thank you!
thank you for showing us how accessible it can be to make our own watercolors. you hit it right on the nose for me that it seemed a bit overwhelming to make such a large volume by hand. i will certainly purchase the powdered gum arabic and give it a go! thank you :D
Totally went ahead and instantly ordered myself some powdered gum arabic. :D Thank you for the tips and encouragement! I'd love to see more of your experiments for sure. :)
Hi - I'm new to your channel - Awesome Stuff! I've paid really good money to get handmade watercolors that didn't look half as nice as the mixtures you demonstrated here. Many of the simple combinations you made in this video looks better than what the major brands are putting out there as "granulating" colors. I know I'd definitely be interested to see any of your experiments and watercolor making ideas. Thank you!
this was really interesting , kimberly .. i mostly paint with gouache and watercolors, and recently had tried using nupastels, and then applying water to the paper.. the effect is almost identical to gouache .. so many options out there :-)) happy healthy new year to you , and thx for all your incredibly helpful videos and tips.. Norakag, here 👍👍
Oh that is so cool about using water over nupastels, I keep debating sanding some of my hard pastels into some white gouache on my palette to mix up custom pale tints of paint! Thanks so much for stopping by. Have fun and stay creative :D
This is awesome. I just got started making my own pigment from minerals I have. From leftover scraps from doing lapidary work. But this is simple enough just to play around with.
I just love your videos.💕😍 You put so much time, energy, information and love into your work to share with us. I truly appreciate you! Your artwork is beautiful as always😍
Love the final artwork, particularly the gold speckles in the background. I want to try it for myself now! Thanks for sharing all super useful info as usual
Oh my goodness, I love all those sparkly pigments! I guess that is why I was drawn to the Paul Rubens glitter paper I recently had on my wish list. How fun! Yes, I would love to see all your experiments!
I love mica powders so much, I ended up getting some of that Rubens glitter paper! It looks like snow or glass it's got such a delicate dusting of sparkle. I'm working on all sorts of binder experiments for future videos. I'm working out which special characteristics are in the binders of stuff like the acrylic gouache paints you let me borrow too. I think I'll be able to isolate which additives, like chalk powders, dispersing agents and pigment ratios that we can add to our other paints to make similar products. I'll get in touch with you soon once I wrap up playing with the things you sent :)
@@KimberlyCrick I love that glitter paper and I can't wait to use mine some more! I can't wait to see your future videos - I learn so much from you. Looking forward to all of it!
Glitterpaper? I have never heard about this before. But I have a tube of iridescent acrylic paint in my stash and I have heard that you can put a thin layer of acrylic paint on a watercolour paper to use it as an underpainting. I should try this with the iridescent paint! Thanks for this inspiration, all of you!
@@schuhujin5019 Yeah as long as your acrylic is pretty watered down, so it doesn't make the paper glossy you can totally do an underpainting. It's a delicate balance since too thick of a layer of acrylic will resist watercolor (since its binder repels watercolor, like glue or varnish would). I sometimes do grisaille underpainting with dark acrylic ink or india ink on watercolor paper, to have shading that is waterproof under my watercolors! The glitter paper by Paul Rubens looks like iridescent medium (pearl white mica) was spray applied to the stop of watercolor paper before you start painting, providing a nice delicate shimmer effect all over. I haven't played with it yet, but Daniel Smith has a pearlescent watercolor ground, essentially a sparkly mica colored absorbent gesso that might be pretty too. Have fun :D
I made my own binder from the stuff in the video and it’s really easy but it was messy and does take time so I think the video shows a good alternative.
OOooooh I LOVE THIS VIDEO!!! I actually enjoy the paintmaking process, so I actually bought a few artist grade pigments like pbk11 and pr233 (so I have no shortage of potter's pink, hehehe) to make my own paints.... My most expensive purchase was the glass muller (I used to use glass goblets and champagne glasses). If I have to turn one unused art supply into paint, maybe my cheap Marie's soft pastels. :P maybe even gouache, as I have some chalk powder (the one used to bathe chinchillas) in my supply.
Oh yeah, I bet Marie's soft pastels could make some interesting paints - oooh maybe even as a way to tint a mixture with white gouache to make pale pastel-tones :D
Awesome, thank you so much for choosing to get it through my site, I appreciate it! I hope you have tons of fun turning all sorts of things into watercolor :D
At times I'm just painting with my dry pastels and sanguine/sepia chalks. I pick some pigment off the chalks with the wet brush (just like with watercolours) and paint or colour away. As for making paints I only did something like that once. I sharpened my blue Lamy 3Plus watercolour wax crayons/pencils, then I collected the shaves and mixed them with some water in a little plastic bottle cap. As it dried it did turn into something like paint. I placed it next to my watercolour pans in an old pencil case. It does work! At times I paint and colour with it.
@@HeatherBryant22 lol I got you, will do! Yeah I've collected so much gouache that I just had to see if I could make it more water resistant, since I like acrylic gouaches but they are so darn expensive I'd rather try to enhance and combine my own paints. I've had some fun results with adding calcium carbonate to acrylics too for a super matte chalky paint without so much glossy shine as most acrylics :)
@@KimberlyCrick You are amazing...Please discuss the calcium carbonate, I have a small jar of the golden so flat and would love to do more matte work at a lower cost
This is so much gun - these shinies are amazing=3. I've bought powdered fabric dyes to try to turn them into watercolours. They can be used straight from the package, but I want to experiment. I know, they probably won't be so lightfast (But I wonder though if they are used to colour fabric and fabric is exposed to the sun, so maybe they kinda are?=)) Oh, so many possibilities!=3 Thank you for showing us all of these, it proves once again that you can use so many different materials and have fun!
Great video! I've dabbled a bit with making watercolours using a muller and the whole shebang; it took forever just to make a few colours I got impatient with it very quickly so I haven't made any for ages. Your tips here make it look a lot easier so I might need to give it another go. Gorgeous painting too. 😊
Thank you, I have done a lot of tedious paint making in the past and then needed to take a really long break from it lol. It's easy to get burnt out from the chore of it, masking up when dealing with large amounts of powder and then the clean up involved. Eventually I just started taking out less pigment powder at a time to just stir up simple paint on demand only when I wanted to use it for a project. I'm happier now with what I make for myself when not treating it like a big operation/like I'm going to set up shop. Happy painting :)
Oh No! More art supplies to add to my list. Ahem. Just received my first Daniel Smith paints including le gander blue hue, lunar earth, and a primatek set. Now I’m super curious to buy some mica powders. My sapphire blue in my finetec set has this weird greyish shadow that appears and I find that a real shame. Putting some of the blue or even duo chrome or I interference mica powders into some blue paints sounds exciting. Thanks for this video Kim. Ps. My new Schmincke gouache paints are outstanding!
Lol sorry, it seems like there's never ending art supplies! I know what you mean, I have a lot of the finetec and coliro colors and there's probably a good dozen or so that have that nasty looking gray undertone that make them really unsuitable for white paper. I end up using them only in masstone on dark now since that effect bothers me.
I’m really enjoying your videos so I subscribed today. Last month I made a DIY watercolor palette using my Caran D’Ache Neocolor II. I had a small set of 15 sticks and some open stock. After the point had worn down I wasn’t using them. I also have watercolor pencils, but I wanted to try watercoloring using the traditional format. However I didn’t want to buy new paints. I had an empty watercolor palette box, and I had a lightbulb moment, and decided to snap my Neocolor II sticks in half. Then I used a heat tool to soften them, cut into pieces, soften again, and then shove the chopped up Neocolor II pieces into the empty cavities in the watercolor palette box. Voila my DIY watercolor palette was born. I have subsequently bought some tube paints and I’m using both my DIY palette and tube paints.
Oh that is so cool, I didn't really enjoy using the neocolor in their stick form for drawing - I'd probably like them a lot better made into pans. Thanks for sharing! Happy painting :)
I feel like this method is also good if you're someone like me, who has...destroyed an unfathomable amount of soft pastels until they're too small to use. Oops. Definitely a lot less work than making paint with a muller! Though I never bought a glass slab- I just found an old glass cutting board at the local charity shop and sanded. Much much cheaper. I'll have to try this, and I'd be very interested in any more paint making experiments/experiences you've had!
You and me both, I'm sitting on boxes full of tiny bits of mostly used pastels and nubs of charcoal, pastel and watercolor pencils that have been sharpened down to pieces hard to hold for drawing. If you find they get too tiny to sand paper easily, you can also put pastels in a zip lock and gently hammer it to make it quicker to grind in a bowl. Have fun :)
I have a nice little stash of Perfect Pearls. I knowit already has binder-can I add some directly to my watercolors. May have to buy the Arteza just to make the Charcoal Grey. It knocked my socks off!
Yes, perfect pearls can be mixed with your watercolors. If you add too much powder and then too much water it's possible there may not be enough gum binder to keep it from being 100% rub-off proof once dry. Test a small bit and if you run into that issue a touch of gum arabic would fix it. Some brands of watercolor have plenty of binder to give you a lot of wiggle room with ratios though, so I definitely encourage you to experiment! Happy painting :)
@@kmeldrom6932 Pearl ex combined with gum arabic make gorgeous watercolors! Some of the most recent additions to the pearl ex catalog, like hot copper and knox gold make some of the most stunning real-metal looking watercolors I've made.
adding shaved graphite is a great idea 😀 i have a bunch of pigments i keep meaning to do something with but since they came second hand im not 100%sure what to do with them
EDIT: Oh shit, don't use the stuff from Kremer. Looks like that QoR chemically altered their Aquazol so they can use it for Watercolors, my bad. The Kremer is for conservation, not for paint making. I don't have Aquazol because I already have a hard time with the QoR watercolors and like it more when my paints "behave", but I saw that some CZcamsr used Aquazol as a Oxgall replacement. I think you could also use it too completely replace Gum Arabic (please don't take my word for it), according too Kremer it's an water-soluble synthetic resin and in the German Version of the description they said that you can "replace watercolors" with them when you are a conservator
Lindy's uses dye powders instead of pigments for most of their colors, so you won't need to mix those with gum arabic to use it like watercolor. The only part of their magical powders that is mica pigment is the golden or pearlescent parts, any color is crystalized dye which will dissolve into an ink-like liquid when you add water. Unlike pigment, dyes don't have much substance so they won't be great for making pan watercolors, but they could definitely be mixed into any pigment powders to add colorful effects. Think of pigments (insoluble) like the sediment that would settle at the bottom of a paint bottle and need to be stirred, where as dyes (soluble) have no real structure so they disperse into water making a colorful ink that would not settle or ever need to be stirred. Have fun experimenting :)
@@bonniefriesen8648 The dye part of their colors won't rub off, because they will soak into the paper fibers rather than sitting on the paper surface like pigments do. I'm not sure if Lindy's adds any binders to keep the additional flecks of pearlescent/gold pigments from rubbing off, you'd have to just test it yourself or ask them. I haven't tried their product since they are advertised as dyes which I usually avoid since they fade (all those colorful non-metallic staining crystals of reds/yellow/blue etc.). Lindy's say they're meant to be used by just adding water before applying to paper, no mention of needing extra binders. Of course if you have any trouble with their product rubbing off, then gum arabic would definitely be the answer to fixing that.
You can find empty full or half pans on Jacksons or Amazon. For the clear bead storage containers, I put a link directly to those trays I used for the mica in the description.
Yes, but there are different grades of gum arabic and usually only a certain subsection of the acacia known for it's clarity and sap density are used for pro paints. You may find that a powder marketed for food use might be lighter, fluffier or even more yellow-leaning and require more binder to adhere the pigment to paper.
The timing on this video is uncanny. I just cleaned a bunch of pans out to use for watercolor paints I don't use much anymore to make my own metallic and pastel colors. It's on the schedule to do tomorrow, lol.
DIY light pastel tints are definitely on my to-do list! I think I'm going to experiment with a white gouache base for pastel color mixing, so I can make some more opaque colors to use as highlights over my other watercolors or on black paper. Have fun with your DIY, may you stumble onto one of your own favorite custom mixtures to enjoy painting with :D
I remember my grandpa used to use gum arabic to hand roll cigarettes when I was a kid, but I didn't realize it was ever used for a general purpose glue at school!
I'm pretty sure that 2b pencil at 4:43 was sitting in a cup on my desk unused for more than a few years. It's time to dust things off and turn them into watercolor :)
Oh joy! I've been making my own watercolours for about 50years now - basically because I wanted to keep shades I'd mixed. I was fortunate enough to discover mica powders in Chinese shops and very cheap tubes of watercolour and acrylics. I've always used gum Arabic and glycerine - as advised to by the Chinese owners of the shop. They used rice glue as a binder and the equivalent of glycerine, the texture of her paint was stickier than mine, she gave me some of hers but I never managed to replicate it. I now have many many many home made water colours and irridescents. My 11 year old grand daughter also loves using and making her own. As I have frequently said, I AM a paint peasant - and I still use the cheapest ingredients to get my results. I shall experiment with graphite though as I really love granulation. Please do more of this type of video, my little heart was pounding with delight! As usual - and to be expected - your artwork is superb! Thank you, thank you, really enjoyed this!😁😊
Thank you so much, I definitely recommend experimenting with stuff like graphite and charcoal - the granulation texture can be so interesting! Graphite has such an interesting slightly shiny appearance and it's remarkably easy to work with. Ooh that's so interesting, I've never seen rice glue as a binder. It's so fun to see all the different ways watercolor can be made, from simple to complex, with or without additives/humectants/dispersing agents. Each and every brand, and our own creations, are so unique that each paint maker has a signature feel. Part of the magic of watercolors :D
I was realy excited to see a video on just what we had talked about !!! You were so right on your suggestion to mix gold with blue. The combination is stunning ! So many art channels and CZcamsrs are just dedicated to hauls and "sponsored" products, you are a breath of fresh and wonderfully non-commercial air. Great video
Yeah, us talking about that recently made me really want to paint with that blue-gold mix again! I ended up loving some of the pastel pearl colors I mixed, like pearl white mica and dioxazine violet too. While I was at it I realized I have so many neglected dry art supplies that could be used in a similar way, added to our watercolors for endless unique mixtures. I don't think any pencils, chalk or charcoal in the house are safe from me anymore lol. I get bothered by haul videos that seem to glorify buying things without putting them to good use. I also like to come up with alternate ideas or using supplies for general tutorials, instead of just pushing the sale a product. I'd like to inspire looking around at what we have, maybe grab that poor sad 2b pencil in the desk drawer to upcycle. Have fun :D
@@KimberlyCrick You really are exactly why I come to CZcams...inspiration. Looking forward to your tips on gouache/acrylic and that calcium carbonate idea. Thank you again for all your honesty and wonderful videos ;)
Thank you for a simple way to make personal paint from unused art supplies and such.
Woah, Kim Crick does it again, what a spectacular information-filled video! I personally would LOVE to see your experiments with gouache and acrylics!
Yes, yes, yes!!! Really want to see more of your paint making experiments! So many art supplies have more to do with brand marketing and packaging that the actual art material is getting pushed to the background. Be good to by-pass all that and just make it myself. TFS!!!
That blue + charcoal bird is gorgeous! Thank you for shining some light on how simple the process can be. It's easy to feel overwhelmed & talk yourself out of doing something fun like this. Personally, I'm enamored now with the idea of turning my old #2 pencils into some epic paint! Thanks!
Making paint is something I always wanted to try just once but like you said it’s so involved and you have to buy so much to get started but this is great! I think I’ll grab some gum arabic and give it a try! Thank you for sharing this!
I would love to see any and all of your paint making experiments! I’ve made a few of my own watercolors recently and really enjoy it, and I love to watch other people experiment ☺️☺️
I usually make my own paints with decommissioned chalk pastels and the usual binder recipe of arabic, ox gall, glycerine and honey. I'd be very interested in a video featuring your experiments (gouache and acrylic? Tell us more!) and, if you have any, your color recipes that have given you the most use in your work other than the blue and gold mica combination.
I would love to see more paint making
Not quite the same thing but I've "repurposed" watercolor pencils for years by scribbling a dense spot of color on textured paper and simply using it as a palette with a brush. Very convenient for travel and easier on my hands, plus you can get that soft blended watercolor look. Also really great if you have kids that want to paint.. you can add the pencil spots directly to the bottom or sides of a pre printed or drawn page for DIY "paint with water" sheets.
WoW....I Have searched for about a year to find you....
I was looking for how to make mica powder into a watercolour and non rub-off-able medium! haha
And you just gave me SOOO MUCH more information than I expected 👌
thank you so much Xx
Oh how I'd love to see your more in depth experiments with binders and different pigments!!@
I have a lot of old mica from cosmetics companies back when jars of colourful powder were all the rage and used to use them to make my own nail polish, but using them to make paints might be even more fun. I'm not a fan of Arteza as a company but that mica set looks promising too. I love the Coliro paints (round pans) and have almost a full set but there are some gaps in the range. Your golds here look just as vibrant as theirs and at I imagine a fraction of the cost over time, albeit with slightly more effort than adding to basket and waiting for delivery. The arduous process of making paints had always been the barrier for me as I just don't have the physical stamina for all that mulling, but knowing that for some of them you can just pop a couple of ingredients in a pot and mix them up makes this so much more accessible for personal use. Thank you for sharing more of the wonderfully creative things you do, I always thoroughly enjoy your videos.
I had to come back and watch this video again after receiving the charcoal sticks in the box you sent me. I can't believe how much of this video I had already forgotten. Scary! But I'm glad it was here for me as a resource, so thank you!
Thank you for this excellent video. I’m not yet where I want to try mixing my own paint, but really interested in the idea of homemade graphi-tint in a limitless range of colours. Also really enjoyed seeing how your composition mixed vibrant, shiny and muted tones harmoniously together.
Thank you! Luckily there's pre made graphite watercolor too. Even if you don't want to DIY with graphite powder, you could mix PBk10 graphite tube watercolor from daniel smith or schmincke (or the pan form artgraf tin of watersoluble graphite) with any color on your palette for endless graphi-tint colors :D
...and you can be assured it's lightfast because you know the base pigments going into it.
Once again you have answered questions I didn't even know I had! Love how you come up with fresh content that is off the beaten track but extremely relevant and super helpful! For sure, I would really enjoy seeing a video on your favorite pigment powders. Thank you again so much for continuing to share your knowledge expertise and passion for watercolour.
What a fabulous video! Experimenting is my jam, and I'm so glad I found your channel! I'd love to see more paint making, color mixing videos. Thank you so much for being so awesome! ❤️
This is so interesting! I definitely appreciate the small batch for personal use concept. My primary medium is encaustic and I’ve made paint from so many weird things, from eye shadows to blood. (Not recommend…it cooks on the heated palette). These pigments can be used in so many ways!
How did your experiment with making paint with eyeshadow work out? I have some palettes of dollar tree dry pucklets of eyeshadow I bought intending to discard the makeup and replace it with paint. The colors are super vibrant and mica heavy, so this would be fun to try. I’ve heard though, that makeup usually has some wax or something like that in it that makes it unsuitable for turning into watercolor paint…?
@@jenneke9763 I've had some problems with eye shadows because of the additives like talc and other water-resistant additives like waxes. Loose powder brands work better than compressed ones. It's all a gamble with what ingredients the cosmetic company included - some can completely repel water. Like make it nearly impossible to turn into a paste and the powder just floats on top of any water you add. I wouldn't purposely buy new eyeshadow for watercolor making, but I would totally experiment with any you have!
@@KimberlyCrick Thanks Kim, I’ll be checking out the Michaels shelves for gum Arabic ASAP! This looks like so much fun! Your paintings sold me on trying out the process! And if the eyeshadow is a bust, I’ve plenty of graphite pencils and charcoal ;)
This was super interesting! I'd love to see more of everything you do! Subbing to you right now! I've gotten my gum arabic powder and mixed it with water, glycerine and honey and about to embark on making some water colors. I also am a soap maker and have ALOT of mica pigments and I'm going to use some old metallic eyeshadow too. This video just pushed me off the fence to get to it!! Thanks for sharing!😊❤
Mica pigments just don't need to be mulled. You CAN mull them if you want, but it tends to break the pigment into smaller particles. That makes it less sparkly. I have a muller and glass slab to make paints with, but I never use them for mica. Mixing with a palette knife does the job.
Technically no pigment (already in fine powder form) absolutely needs to be mulled. It's just good for making a really uniform paint and making sure all particles are coated with binder. I've made all sorts of watercolor without mulling, not just mica, including the graphite, pastels or charcoal in the video, but also pigment powders like ultramarine blue, phthalos, magenta, burnt umbers etc. I mention you can also grind them in a bowl, like with a mortar and pestle instead of under a muller (if a smoother more uniform paint is desired), but the point of this video is skipping that. Even palette knife mixing could be optional, if that feels too messy or tedious to someone beginning to experimen with small batch or on-demand colors on a palette during a painting session.
This is fantastic. Loved what you were able to create with the graphite painting! I've wanted to try this sort of thing but really didn't understand how easily it could be scaled down. Thank you!
Thank you so much! Now I'm all intrigued and experimental!
thank you for showing us how accessible it can be to make our own watercolors. you hit it right on the nose for me that it seemed a bit overwhelming to make such a large volume by hand. i will certainly purchase the powdered gum arabic and give it a go! thank you :D
So interesting! I would love to see more videos of your experiments! I always enjoy your videos and always learn something!
Totally went ahead and instantly ordered myself some powdered gum arabic. :D Thank you for the tips and encouragement! I'd love to see more of your experiments for sure. :)
I hope you have a blast turning stuff into watercolor :D
Hi - I'm new to your channel - Awesome Stuff! I've paid really good money to get handmade watercolors that didn't look half as nice as the mixtures you demonstrated here. Many of the simple combinations you made in this video looks better than what the major brands are putting out there as "granulating" colors. I know I'd definitely be interested to see any of your experiments and watercolor making ideas. Thank you!
this was really interesting , kimberly .. i mostly paint with gouache and watercolors, and recently had tried using nupastels, and then applying water to the paper.. the effect is almost identical to gouache .. so many options out there :-)) happy healthy new year to you , and thx for all your incredibly helpful videos and tips.. Norakag, here 👍👍
Oh that is so cool about using water over nupastels, I keep debating sanding some of my hard pastels into some white gouache on my palette to mix up custom pale tints of paint! Thanks so much for stopping by. Have fun and stay creative :D
This opens up so many possibilities! Thanks for the tip :)
This is awesome. I just got started making my own pigment from minerals I have. From leftover scraps from doing lapidary work. But this is simple enough just to play around with.
I just love your videos.💕😍 You put so much time, energy, information and love into your work to share with us. I truly appreciate you! Your artwork is beautiful as always😍
Love the final artwork, particularly the gold speckles in the background. I want to try it for myself now! Thanks for sharing all super useful info as usual
Can't wait to try the graphite! Think I still have some ancient charcoal as well! Please please keep chucking these ideas out! Thanks 😀
Oh my goodness, I love all those sparkly pigments! I guess that is why I was drawn to the Paul Rubens glitter paper I recently had on my wish list. How fun! Yes, I would love to see all your experiments!
I love mica powders so much, I ended up getting some of that Rubens glitter paper! It looks like snow or glass it's got such a delicate dusting of sparkle. I'm working on all sorts of binder experiments for future videos. I'm working out which special characteristics are in the binders of stuff like the acrylic gouache paints you let me borrow too. I think I'll be able to isolate which additives, like chalk powders, dispersing agents and pigment ratios that we can add to our other paints to make similar products. I'll get in touch with you soon once I wrap up playing with the things you sent :)
@@KimberlyCrick I love that glitter paper and I can't wait to use mine some more! I can't wait to see your future videos - I learn so much from you. Looking forward to all of it!
Glitterpaper? I have never heard about this before. But I have a tube of iridescent acrylic paint in my stash and I have heard that you can put a thin layer of acrylic paint on a watercolour paper to use it as an underpainting. I should try this with the iridescent paint! Thanks for this inspiration, all of you!
@@schuhujin5019 I would love to know if that works for you!
@@schuhujin5019 Yeah as long as your acrylic is pretty watered down, so it doesn't make the paper glossy you can totally do an underpainting. It's a delicate balance since too thick of a layer of acrylic will resist watercolor (since its binder repels watercolor, like glue or varnish would). I sometimes do grisaille underpainting with dark acrylic ink or india ink on watercolor paper, to have shading that is waterproof under my watercolors!
The glitter paper by Paul Rubens looks like iridescent medium (pearl white mica) was spray applied to the stop of watercolor paper before you start painting, providing a nice delicate shimmer effect all over. I haven't played with it yet, but Daniel Smith has a pearlescent watercolor ground, essentially a sparkly mica colored absorbent gesso that might be pretty too. Have fun :D
I made my own binder from the stuff in the video and it’s really easy but it was messy and does take time so I think the video shows a good alternative.
OOooooh I LOVE THIS VIDEO!!! I actually enjoy the paintmaking process, so I actually bought a few artist grade pigments like pbk11 and pr233 (so I have no shortage of potter's pink, hehehe) to make my own paints.... My most expensive purchase was the glass muller (I used to use glass goblets and champagne glasses). If I have to turn one unused art supply into paint, maybe my cheap Marie's soft pastels. :P maybe even gouache, as I have some chalk powder (the one used to bathe chinchillas) in my supply.
Oh yeah, I bet Marie's soft pastels could make some interesting paints - oooh maybe even as a way to tint a mixture with white gouache to make pale pastel-tones :D
Yes! I just ordered gum arabic from your site!
Awesome, thank you so much for choosing to get it through my site, I appreciate it! I hope you have tons of fun turning all sorts of things into watercolor :D
@@KimberlyCrick I ordered some stamps, and thought, ooh, I could use that! Now, that I saw your video, I may need to order more! Lol!
I absolutely love the beautiful bird! This is truly on a higher plane of creative!
Wow, those violet flowers are mesmerizing 😯
At times I'm just painting with my dry pastels and sanguine/sepia chalks. I pick some pigment off the chalks with the wet brush (just like with watercolours) and paint or colour away.
As for making paints I only did something like that once. I sharpened my blue Lamy 3Plus watercolour wax crayons/pencils, then I collected the shaves and mixed them with some water in a little plastic bottle cap. As it dried it did turn into something like paint. I placed it next to my watercolour pans in an old pencil case. It does work! At times I paint and colour with it.
Goucher with acrylics please!
That was supposed to say gouche! Dang auto correct lol!
@@HeatherBryant22 lol I got you, will do! Yeah I've collected so much gouache that I just had to see if I could make it more water resistant, since I like acrylic gouaches but they are so darn expensive I'd rather try to enhance and combine my own paints. I've had some fun results with adding calcium carbonate to acrylics too for a super matte chalky paint without so much glossy shine as most acrylics :)
@@KimberlyCrick I'd like to hear more about the calcium carbonate in acrylics.
@@KimberlyCrick You are amazing...Please discuss the calcium carbonate, I have a small jar of the golden so flat and would love to do more matte work at a lower cost
This is so much gun - these shinies are amazing=3. I've bought powdered fabric dyes to try to turn them into watercolours. They can be used straight from the package, but I want to experiment. I know, they probably won't be so lightfast (But I wonder though if they are used to colour fabric and fabric is exposed to the sun, so maybe they kinda are?=)) Oh, so many possibilities!=3 Thank you for showing us all of these, it proves once again that you can use so many different materials and have fun!
LOVE THIS VIDEO!! Thank you for breaking it down and making it understandable. I can't wait to play see what I can come up with!
Thank you! I always wanted to make some paint but felt intimated. You explained everything so clearly.
Great video! I've dabbled a bit with making watercolours using a muller and the whole shebang; it took forever just to make a few colours I got impatient with it very quickly so I haven't made any for ages. Your tips here make it look a lot easier so I might need to give it another go. Gorgeous painting too. 😊
Thank you, I have done a lot of tedious paint making in the past and then needed to take a really long break from it lol. It's easy to get burnt out from the chore of it, masking up when dealing with large amounts of powder and then the clean up involved. Eventually I just started taking out less pigment powder at a time to just stir up simple paint on demand only when I wanted to use it for a project. I'm happier now with what I make for myself when not treating it like a big operation/like I'm going to set up shop. Happy painting :)
Oh No! More art supplies to add to my list. Ahem. Just received my first Daniel Smith paints including le gander blue hue, lunar earth, and a primatek set. Now I’m super curious to buy some mica powders. My sapphire blue in my finetec set has this weird greyish shadow that appears and I find that a real shame. Putting some of the blue or even duo chrome or I interference mica powders into some blue paints sounds exciting.
Thanks for this video Kim.
Ps. My new Schmincke gouache paints are outstanding!
Lol sorry, it seems like there's never ending art supplies! I know what you mean, I have a lot of the finetec and coliro colors and there's probably a good dozen or so that have that nasty looking gray undertone that make them really unsuitable for white paper. I end up using them only in masstone on dark now since that effect bothers me.
Wow!😃
You are so Awesome!😍
Thank you for sharing this information!👍
I Absolutely LOVE your artwork!🥰
Hugs!❤️
Thank you so much for your sweet comment! Happy painting :D
Happy new year Kim! :)
Thank you, happy new year! May it be a beautifully creative one :D
I’m really enjoying your videos so I subscribed today. Last month I made a DIY watercolor palette using my Caran D’Ache Neocolor II. I had a small set of 15 sticks and some open stock. After the point had worn down I wasn’t using them. I also have watercolor pencils, but I wanted to try watercoloring using the traditional format. However I didn’t want to buy new paints. I had an empty watercolor palette box, and I had a lightbulb moment, and decided to snap my Neocolor II sticks in half. Then I used a heat tool to soften them, cut into pieces, soften again, and then shove the chopped up Neocolor II pieces into the empty cavities in the watercolor palette box. Voila my DIY watercolor palette was born. I have subsequently bought some tube paints and I’m using both my DIY palette and tube paints.
Oh that is so cool, I didn't really enjoy using the neocolor in their stick form for drawing - I'd probably like them a lot better made into pans. Thanks for sharing! Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick your welcome and thank you!
Love this type of video and your colors are stunning
Thanks so much for sharing this! Very inspiring and lovely paintings! ❤️
I feel like this method is also good if you're someone like me, who has...destroyed an unfathomable amount of soft pastels until they're too small to use. Oops. Definitely a lot less work than making paint with a muller! Though I never bought a glass slab- I just found an old glass cutting board at the local charity shop and sanded. Much much cheaper.
I'll have to try this, and I'd be very interested in any more paint making experiments/experiences you've had!
You and me both, I'm sitting on boxes full of tiny bits of mostly used pastels and nubs of charcoal, pastel and watercolor pencils that have been sharpened down to pieces hard to hold for drawing. If you find they get too tiny to sand paper easily, you can also put pastels in a zip lock and gently hammer it to make it quicker to grind in a bowl. Have fun :)
I have a nice little stash of Perfect Pearls. I knowit already has binder-can I add some directly to my watercolors. May have to buy the Arteza just to make the Charcoal Grey. It knocked my socks off!
Yes, perfect pearls can be mixed with your watercolors. If you add too much powder and then too much water it's possible there may not be enough gum binder to keep it from being 100% rub-off proof once dry. Test a small bit and if you run into that issue a touch of gum arabic would fix it. Some brands of watercolor have plenty of binder to give you a lot of wiggle room with ratios though, so I definitely encourage you to experiment! Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick great video and aghhhh! There goes my no buy 22 😂. Can the same be said of PearlEx? I’ve got a bunch of those. Thanks so much! 🌺
@@kmeldrom6932 Pearl ex combined with gum arabic make gorgeous watercolors! Some of the most recent additions to the pearl ex catalog, like hot copper and knox gold make some of the most stunning real-metal looking watercolors I've made.
@@KimberlyCrick Thank you again! New art supply already in stash! 😂
@@KimberlyCrick Just noticed link to Jackson for mica pigment. May be in big trouble here! Just ordered mini porcelain palette!
Show, show. Muito obrigada e Feliz Ano Novo e muita Arte.
Feliz ano novo com muita criatividade :)
adding shaved graphite is a great idea 😀
i have a bunch of pigments i keep meaning to do something with but since they came second hand im not 100%sure what to do with them
One quick question - have you researched/tried using the QOR binder, in this sort of way? Would it work, to get that random crazy flow?
Do you mean Aquazol? I think you can get a similar effect by putting some Oxgall in the paint.
(Kremer also sell Aquazol in bulk for whatever reason)
@@wafa7348 yes. I think that is what I was wondering about. Does it work in PLACE of gum arabic, or WITH it?
EDIT: Oh shit, don't use the stuff from Kremer. Looks like that QoR chemically altered their Aquazol so they can use it for Watercolors, my bad.
The Kremer is for conservation, not for paint making.
I don't have Aquazol because I already have a hard time with the QoR watercolors and like it more when my paints "behave", but I saw that some CZcamsr used Aquazol as a Oxgall replacement. I think you could also use it too completely replace Gum Arabic (please don't take my word for it), according too Kremer it's an water-soluble synthetic resin and in the German Version of the description they said that you can "replace watercolors" with them when you are a conservator
Would love to know how this works. I try to use vegan/cruelty free art supplies.
@@wafa7348 Thank you so much for researching that!
Thanks re pans. I confess I didn't read description I just watched video - a few times! Slapped wrist and lesson learnt.....😑
So cool! I have some Lindy’s Stamp Gang Magical powders sitting around. I’m sure they would work as well?
Lindy's uses dye powders instead of pigments for most of their colors, so you won't need to mix those with gum arabic to use it like watercolor. The only part of their magical powders that is mica pigment is the golden or pearlescent parts, any color is crystalized dye which will dissolve into an ink-like liquid when you add water. Unlike pigment, dyes don't have much substance so they won't be great for making pan watercolors, but they could definitely be mixed into any pigment powders to add colorful effects. Think of pigments (insoluble) like the sediment that would settle at the bottom of a paint bottle and need to be stirred, where as dyes (soluble) have no real structure so they disperse into water making a colorful ink that would not settle or ever need to be stirred. Have fun experimenting :)
@@KimberlyCrick so if I paint with them they won’t rub off when I touch them?
@@bonniefriesen8648 The dye part of their colors won't rub off, because they will soak into the paper fibers rather than sitting on the paper surface like pigments do. I'm not sure if Lindy's adds any binders to keep the additional flecks of pearlescent/gold pigments from rubbing off, you'd have to just test it yourself or ask them. I haven't tried their product since they are advertised as dyes which I usually avoid since they fade (all those colorful non-metallic staining crystals of reds/yellow/blue etc.). Lindy's say they're meant to be used by just adding water before applying to paper, no mention of needing extra binders. Of course if you have any trouble with their product rubbing off, then gum arabic would definitely be the answer to fixing that.
Anything you do can think of to do I'm interested in
How do you make white?
Me again! Just wondering where you get your plastic trays for storing your made paints . thanks
You can find empty full or half pans on Jacksons or Amazon. For the clear bead storage containers, I put a link directly to those trays I used for the mica in the description.
Beautiful!
Maybe a strange question, but would food grade gum arabicpowder also work as a binder?
Yes, but there are different grades of gum arabic and usually only a certain subsection of the acacia known for it's clarity and sap density are used for pro paints. You may find that a powder marketed for food use might be lighter, fluffier or even more yellow-leaning and require more binder to adhere the pigment to paper.
@@KimberlyCrick Thank you!
The timing on this video is uncanny. I just cleaned a bunch of pans out to use for watercolor paints I don't use much anymore to make my own metallic and pastel colors. It's on the schedule to do tomorrow, lol.
DIY light pastel tints are definitely on my to-do list! I think I'm going to experiment with a white gouache base for pastel color mixing, so I can make some more opaque colors to use as highlights over my other watercolors or on black paper. Have fun with your DIY, may you stumble onto one of your own favorite custom mixtures to enjoy painting with :D
Seriously!!! All I have to do is mix gum Arabic and mica? That is so much easier.
Am I old if I remember using gum Arabic as glue at school?
I remember my grandpa used to use gum arabic to hand roll cigarettes when I was a kid, but I didn't realize it was ever used for a general purpose glue at school!