5 Natural Pigments that I Failed at Making

[@TheVitaminQ]

You made black rust instead of red rust (Fe2O3) because the lid was on the jar. Rust forms when iron combines with oxygen in the air. Black rust (Fe3O4) forms in anaerobic conditions, meaning less oxygen. Red rust has 2 irons sharing 3 oxygen. Black rust has 3 irons sharing 4 oxygen. Less oxygen present, means the rust will still form, but the ratio of iron to oxygen is smaller. 3/4ths vs. 2/3rds. Put the iron in a large, open mouthed container, like a bucket, and don't seal or cover it. Give it a strong swirl or a shake every couple days. This will knock off some of the rust, exposing the iron underneath to rust more. You don't have to get fancy and spray iron with a mister. Just throw it in a bucket and let it sit. Strain off the rusty water, and replace with fresh water to speed it up. Water which has been aggressively shaken will have more dissolved oxygen in it. Just like how a bubbler adds oxygen to a fish tank. Add a teaspoon of table salt if you want it to rust EVEN faster. But make sure you rinse the rust powder with clean water to get out the salt before using it for paint. You can just pour clean water over the powder several times while it's still in the filter paper. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eou3Y4qaiMt4l6s

[@Paul-vo4ze]

The reason I've binged on your videos is because I've been reading a book on the history of colours called Chromatopia. I'm a potter myself so come at things from a slightly different angle, focusing more on rocks than plants but I've found your videos fascinating and well filmed. Please make more!!

[@NadaMakes1]

Thats awesome, thanks! Ill check out the book cause it sounds super interesting. I havent made some in a while cause I was moving country/ had a motivation crash but ill start up again soon :)

[@ivjizzy]

I love this series so much, it's such a good blend of art and science. The fails are just as important as the successes! For iron oxide or rust to accumulate, you need to have the metal be in contact with oxygen (it won't work too well if it's completely submerged in water). For really quick rust try making a salt water or an acid water solution and spray it on the metal every so often, it'd be mimicking a sea breeze!

[@NadaMakes1]

Thanks! Im really glad you enjoy the videos :) Thats a really good idea, to keep spraying it on and letting it dry - im it would work perfectly

[@alexw6582]

I love seeing things that do not work and it is also really important in sciencd to prevent everyone trying the same things :)

[@twycross3]

Hey Nada! I couldn't wait to try the verdigris in oil paint and just mixed some up a short while ago. WOW!!! I love this stuff!!! The best way I can put it is its a good shadow color to your copper carbonate color. Its a definite teal color! This pigment absorbs oil big time! be careful with the quantity of oil you use on the pigment. I mulled it several times to get a good smooth paint. And while I had the paint there in front of me I had to mix up a small batch of iron oxide (red) beside it and iron oxide yellow (also known as yellow ochre). WOW!!!! I was in heaven seeing the new shades of green and brown I made!! The red made a nice chestnut brown (very red toned brown) and the yellow ochre made a green similar to a sap green. The verdigris is very much a strongly blue tinted copper carbonate. As a little warning, wear gloves when you work with the verdigris. If you get some paint on your hands it doesn't want to come off unless you use mineral spirits on your hands. Yeah I'll bet the smell is transferring to my keyboard right this moment LOL! Anyway you'll have a ton of fun with this color.

[@NadaMakes1]

Im so glad to hear it came out well for you! Im in the process of moving so I kind of have to put everything on hold but im planning on upping everything up when I get there. Maybe I can get a legit farm going - verdigris is super special to see in person its really really pretty.

[@twycross3]

@@NadaMakes1 If your moving far away from the Nile be sure to get some Nile clay to hold on to for paint testing

[@scavengerethic]

Maybe to make a good amount of rust you could try wetting some steel wool and storing it under a damp cloth. Add a bit of salt to the water to act as an electrolyte. When it has all turned a nice rust colour, let it dry and crush it up. You can then take the unreacted iron threads away from the mixture with a magnet.

[@NadaMakes1]

I hadnt thought of using steel wool, thanks for the suggestion! I will definitely try this with the spray method like how someone else commented

[@TheVitaminQ]

If you use steel wool, be careful to wash it with dish-soap first. I used steel wool to make vinegar/iron stain for wood, and it didn't work well the first time because the steel wool can come with a thin film of oil on it.

[@yann0627]

I really like these kind of pigments making video❤️❤️ I really cant find any video like this made in my mother language I think your videos are quite well made Really excited to make some pigments of my own someday

[@twycross3]

Hey Nada! As far as your verdigris problem goes, all you need to do is add vinegar to your copper carbonate you have in stock. Put the copper carbonate in a tall container so that the foaming from the reaction won't over flow the container. Add the vinegar slowly until all the copper carbonate has been dissolved. The reaction you'll see is producing copper acetate. The foam you see is carbon dioxide bubbles coming up. Once all the copper carbonate is gone and the bubbling has stopped, heat the mixture or let sit out in the sun till the water evaporates. You should have quite a bit of verdigris (copper acetate) crystals on the bottom. A little pounding on them will yield a fine powder. As for your iron chain not rusting away you could add some table salt to water. Clip the chain to short lengths of chain. One chain will attach to the positive terminal of a battery (the same kind of lantern battery you used to make the van dyke brown with). The other piece of chain will attach to the negative terminal of your lantern battery. Within a few hours you'll have you iron oxide. Wash and filter the solids a few times to remove any by products from the reaction. If some of the iron oxide look yellowish or black. Just heat it all up (out of solution) and the powder will turn to a deep brownish red.

[@twycross3]

Another method you could use to make iron oxide is just touch (and I mean just touch it for a second) to some steel wool and suddenly the steel wool will burn from top to bottom. The leftover powder is iron oxide. Sort through it with a magnet to clean out any residual iron. DONE! LOL!

[@NadaMakes1]

Adding the vinegar to the copper carbonate is so smart, seriously, never would have occurred to me and its an awesome shortcut/ more efficient. I hope you dont mind if I 'steal' the idea for future experimenting that im going to do with copper materials. The electrolysis (thats what its called right?) method is also great - id looked into it before as a way to restore cast iron. I didnt know about the heating - I really appreciate these legit chemistry tips/ explanations! About the steel wool + chain = fire how is that physically possible? Sounds crazy in a good way

[@twycross3]

Use a 9V battery and let the negative and positive terminals touch the steel wool. Iron is a pretty good conductor of electricity so a high current from the battery goes through the steel wool and heats the fine mesh to the point it reacts with the oxygen in the air. Just a touch from the battery will cause a redish orange glow to zing through the mesh and leave behind a reddish black powder. After the reaction is finished you'll see that it just turns to powder in your hands. You don't really have to sort through the powder with a magnet. But if you want a good uniform color for your paint do that and heat some to finish anything that didn't react.

[@twycross3]

Of course you can use this information to make a another video! Actually I started making some paints recently and didn't know the part about verdigris mixing well with oil! Recently I started using grape seed oil with my pigments, and found out the ants start eating my paintings (I paint outside). Grape seed oil is suppose to be a drying oil, I'm testing its drying time right now.

[@NadaMakes1]

Ants are on my shit list right now - they keep getting into the linseed oil that im trying to make so I feel your pain. I did a video before on if sunflower can be used as a medium and I went deep into iodine values - they indicate if an oil is drying or non drying - I even made a table in it of all the common oils and were they lie (link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKPKdJqNnc5pZ9E) As for the battery and steel wool - that sounds really cool! Im looking forward to diving deeper into the chemistry side of things and producing reactions and what not

[@pigeonboie5899]

I love these videos so much! Keep up the good work

[@Felahliir]

Hey Nada! About the cherries, mix some vinegar or alcohol in so it doesn’t rot!!

[@studiolomandra]

I love your work! so informative. I have been wanting to learn about making my own paints for so long and you have helped so much

[@NadaMakes1]

Im so glad to hear that, its the only reason I make these videos!

[@NolSoulstien]

Really appreciate this! Thank you!

[@thomascleveland]

Its helpful to know what didn’t work for you.

[@twycross3]

When Thomas Edison was making the light bulb he got criticized for all his failures at making it. His response to his critics was " “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Keep working at it Nada!!

[@NadaMakes1]

Great quote! Thanks

[@celestejett6180]

I love your channel Nada, inspirational!

[@rshinra]

I wonder if for the copper you could melt it and cast it into a flat shape

[@twycross3]

Hey Nada! When you get settled in you could you make soft or oil pastels? I've heard that gum arabic or white chalk can be used to bind the pigment together in a soft pastel.

[@NadaMakes1]

Hey hey! It would be my pleasure :) Would looove to make soft pastels. My stuff is still in a shipping container, should get here in a month or so then ill start cranking out all the videos I missed out on.

[@robynalice879]

Your copper attempt could have so easily been salvaged by seeking a crappy plate of copper at your local junkyard for a few bucks- it would make creation so much easier & even possible to create a tubes worth of paint, given maybe a couple rounds of hanging.😮💓💓

[@NadaMakes1]

Yes youre completely right! The junkyard in Cairo though is one of the sketchiest places I could ever imagine - its been so much easier to collect random materials/ things on the side of the road in canada, should definitely try to make a farm again :)

[@robynalice879]

@@NadaMakes1 I really hope you do have a go at this someday once again :) it looks like you were very excited about the concept!

[@indigodande7542]

What about not adding chalk and just letting the pigments dry in a dehydrator. Try thyme or clove oil to deter fungal growth maybe?

[@indigodande7542]

Try the copper again but dry it out. Less wires more chunk of copper. Capture in vehicle of gum Arabic and buy a proper muller set for makingnwatercolor

[@NadaMakes1]

You're right, its worth doing properly! Thanks :)

[@Saamniferu]

I wish I could handle the smell of vinegar. Verdigris seems so easy to make but... I just cannot tolerate it.

[@tagladyify]

Not sure if it's true or not, but I've heard that a pigment can be made from fall leaves.

[@NadaMakes1]

By boiling or crushing? I assume it would result in oranges and browns, could be very nice

[@xxxorg]

You want rust? Go to an old junkyard and look around there! You will find lots of rust! You will even find it in containers etc. Buckets of chain and misc. Metal pieces! You will find more rust than you can use in one lifetime!

[@NadaMakes1]

True, im kind of really dumb for acting like I cant find it lol

[@smatt566]

i miss u! are you studying? i hope you are great!

[@NadaMakes1]

Yes, full time! Taking programming and robotics for artists classes so its been really hectic! Gonna try to start to get into the routine of uploading again

[@MarcGebhard]

Nada...you've inspired me enough with your lake pigment experiments that I've now opened an Etsy shop for my paints...www.etsy.com/shop/TexasWildColor

[@MarcGebhard]

Not that I'm trying to sell stuff on your page...but I don't have a KZbin channel yet...only a Facebook page that shows some of my experiments.

[@NadaMakes1]

Thats fantastic! Very nice pigments - Im all for supporting these kinds of products and businesses :)

[@tylerjirkovsky482]

You need this thing called gum Arabic to make paint that actually works ok so yea

[@NadaMakes1]

lol gum arabic is for watercolours, this is clearly oil paint, which gum arabic would destroy. Like, if you're gonna be snarky thats cool but at least spread the correct information.

[@tylerjirkovsky482]

@@NadaMakes1 I'm thinking just a tiny bit will do it for yea(PS I'm sorry for being snippy) and as a suggestion that might actually help is that you might want to contact a chemist so you can get the purist form of the pigments so it's just the pigment and the oil because different elements have different properties and that might jank up the overall feel of the paint because all in all you can't fake paint

[@NadaMakes1]

@@tylerjirkovsky482 I was snippy as well, really sorry about that! Youre totally right about purity, I think thats a really great idea. Once I set up again its something that ill definitely include