A beautiful and fascinating part of being an artist is being able to create your own colours with pigments.
All the great artists of the past made their own palettes with coloured powders. They were a kind of little chemists. Nowadays we know that this was a very dangerous and time-consuming process, and we are lucky that we can use ready-to-use colours in tubes.
Still, I thought it would be interesting to give it a try and see how difficult it can be to make your own paints.
So I started doing some research and, after seeing dozens of alternatives to create MICA based colours for pouring or tube paints and evaluating all the necessary mediums and additives in terms of availability and cost, I started experimenting and these are my recipes.
My Recipes to create acrylic paints
VERY IMPORTANT!!! Always remember to wear a mask and gloves to protect yourself from inhaling the pigments or coming into contact with chemical products that could potentially cause allergic reactions.
Recipe Nr. 1 : Acrylic Paints, based on normal pigments or MICA-powders, with a paint-in-tube consistency
Ingredients
White liquid gesso (universal matt primer), thick liquid.
Acrylic retarder, gel consistency.
Acrylic binder, liquid
Acrylic thickener, gel sticky consistency and highly concentrated.
Empty aluminium tubes to store the final colours.
Proceedings
After selecting the pigment (in my case I used MICA powder but you can use any pigment you like), I developed the following process:
Put a small amount of the selected pigment (in my case MICA powder) on a glass surface (such as a glass plate for griding) and work it with a painting knife or a glass muller to remove all the lumps. Then add some drops of distilled water and mix until you get a lumps-free creamy compound.
(Optional) Mix a very small amount of gesso to achieve a better consistency. However, as you will see also in the pictures below, the gesso (as a primer) will reduce the shimmering of the MICA pigments transforming them into normal pigments! (Picture nr.4)
Add glossy acrylic varnish (acrylic varnish) and mix with a glass runner until the powder is completely dissolved without lumps. In this way the final paint will have a glossy appearence.
In order to improve the consistency and avoid the compound from drying too fast, add 1-2 drops of acrylic retarder and continue to work this paste with a glass muller or your palette knife to obtain a smooth consistency.
Carefully add the acrylic binder and mix very well. The paste will become more fluid and it should be continuously unfolded with a glass muller/paint knife. (Picture nr.5)
Add a very small amount of thickener and mix very well with the glass muller (the paste becomes clumpy, dries very quickly and will increase in volume), removing any lumps that form and achieving a smooth consistency.
In order to make the paint creamier, add the acrylic retarder as desired and mix until the right consistency is achieved. (Pictures nr.7-8)
The finished paint can be stored in empty aluminium tubes and/or mixed directly with other normal acrylic colours in order to create for example DYNA or metallic/iridescent paints.
Recipe No.2 (my favourite): MICA Powder mixed to pearlescent white acrylic paint to be used in a pouring painting
VERY IMPORTANT!!! Always remember to wear a mask and gloves to protect yourself from inhaling the pigments or coming into contact with chemical products that could potentially cause allergic reactions.
A simpler way to use MICA powders in acrylic pouring is to dissolve them thoroughly in distilled water, removing any lumps, and then add the compound to the white pearl acrylic colour.
Put the desired quantity of MICA pigment powder or chameleon powder on a glass surface and start to eliminate lumps using a palette knife.
Add some drops of distilled water on the powder and mix until you get a fluid and lumps-free compound. In order to improve the consistency you can add acrylic binder.
When ready, add these prepared pigments to the pearlescent white paint and mix. The end result will be a new metallic acrylic paint that can be used either with a brush or, by adding pouring medium, for a new pouring project. Remember, the more MICA you use, the more colourful will be the final paint.
Through this method you will achieve these results:
the MICA pigment contained in the pearl white will preserve the shimmering effect of the MICA powder mixed.
The pearl paint will give consistency as if you were using a normal acrylic paint
The titanium white that coats the MICA in the pearl white will improve the covering stenght of the new custom paint.
In addition you could add a real slight quantity of normal titanium white acrylic paint to increase the opacity. Remember that too big quantities of titanium white will cancel the shimmering!
Recipe No.3: Creation of acrylic colours for use in acrylic pouring (mostly used method to prepare "This Little Pigments (TLP)" based colours)
VERY IMPORTANT!!! Wear a mask and gloves to protect yourself from inhaling the pigments or coming into contact with chemical products with allergic reactions.
A useful alternative for creating metallic acrylic colours from MICA powders is to use an acrylic-based transparent enamel (i.e. the same enamel used to protect wood and sold in any DIY shop) instead of the acrylic binder.
Very important here is the fact that this enamel MUST be water-based and not solvent-based. Solvent-based ones are normally FLAMMABLE.
This method is the most widespread among pouring artists who use TLP Pigments for the Bloom technique.
In this case, the powders are previously dissolved in glossy acrylic varnish, taking care that they are completely incorporated without lumps. Then the transparent enamel should be added little by little to this compound until the desired paint quantity and consistency is achieved.
On the internet, the most commonly used products are Enamel Behr 8300 and Polycrylic from Minmax. The former, which was one of the basic ingredients for using TLP pigments, was only available in the USA and has now been discontinued, the latter is sold on Amazon at a price of around EUR 30.
Is it worth it to produce acrylic paints?
At the end of this process I came to the conclusion that, even if the process to create paints can be fun, it is a really long process and the final paint is more expensive than buying a ready-to-use paint.
If we wanted to create colours to be used later in an acrylic pouring, we would need a considerable amount of both pigment and acrylic binder, and costs could rise considerably.
How do you feel about that? Have you ever tried to create paints? Let me know in the comments.
Have a colourful and creative day!
Laura
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