Making Your Own Watercolor Paints

I think everyone has had the opportunity to paint with watercolors. Perhaps that is because painting with watercolors has become a regular activity in schools. Watercolors may be difficult to master is subtleties, but unlike oils or acrylics, they are essentially child-friendly. They are so easy-to-use and their water base is non-toxic. This is why most preschools and kindergartens usually use them in parts of their curriculum.

Watercolors are an excellent medium for any budding artist to start in. But before you start painting, how about making your own watercolor paints?

The idea of making paints may sound daunting, but remember most artists before the twentieth century mixed their own paints. With easy access to the ready-made art marketplace, the art of mixing paints is something of a “lost art.”

But creating your own watercolor paints is actually pretty easy. Here is an example making the children’s version – mixing a batch of watercolors for professional use is a more involved process…

First, you’ll have to get together some basic ingredients. You’ll need the following:

• 3 tbsp baking soda
• 3 tbsp cornstarch
• 3 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 1/2 tsp light corn syrup
• food coloring

Note that the measurements can be doubled or tripled depending on how many people will be using the watercolor. This should be enough for a small group of four, but for larger groups add a bit more.

By the way, the corn syrup is the binder, the substance that will keep your pigments together, for your watercolor so its pretty important. YBefore there were bottles of corn syrup on the grocery shelf, artists made their own glucose syrup. “Glucose syrup” is just a fancy name for a sugar solution. To make it, just boil two cups of sugar in a cup of water. Mix it well until you have a clear solution. Now that you have your binder, whether a homemade sugar solution or corn syrup, it’s time to start.

First of all, mix the vinegar and baking soda together in a small bowl. It will start to foam, but that’s a natural reaction, so you just keep mixing. When the foaming has died down, it’s time to add the cornstarch and your syrup, to the mix. Keep on mixing until you get a smooth consistency to the mix. This will be your clear base.

Now that you’re got your base, it’s time to create your color sets. Get several bottle caps or small containers of similar size and pour in the base. After you’ve used up all the clear base, you just add a different food coloring to each small container. Be generous with your coloring amounts – the color needs to spread well, so this means you also have to stir a bit. When you’re done, there’s only one step left – put the caps in a cool dry place so that they can dry.

By the next day, you’ll have a dry set of watercolor paints ready for use!

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