Making Botanical Lake Pigments for Watercolors and Pastels

[@sheilasinghal2922]

This was wonderful! So comprehensive and generous, and so honest about plant-based pigments. As a dyer, ink-maker and artist, I'm always appalled at how books and videos blithely suggest that fabrics and yarns dyed with blueberries or avocado, for example, are going to stay the same colour for more than a few weeks. Even some experienced dyers I know will give me a slightly irritated look (or even a blank stare), when I politely ask, "How fugitive will the final colour be? I would be sad if this brilliant green faded into a dull grey." With your helpful instructions, I'm definitely going to try making some lake-pigment paints and pastel sticks, but will probably only sell the resulting art as prints - before they fade to nothing, haha! Thanks for this fantastic instructional video. 😊

[@KJodiGear]

Exactly. It’s fun - a really interesting thing to do - but fading and color changes need to be talked about more! The best dye plants (and bugs) - the ones that have been used forever to dye fiber seem to also make the best (longest lasting) lake pigments.

[@sheilasinghal2922]

@@KJodiGear I can't wait to try it for myself. 😊

[@smohs2010]

Very well explained. Thank you very much🌸

[@KJodiGear]

You are very welcome!

[@townbell2248]

This is one of the best pigment videos I have watched yet. I have been playing around with making stuff and I am glad I found your videos!

[@townbell2248]

I love pastels and have been making them for my child and me to draw on concrete

[@sophievautour8573]

Thank you. It gave me clarity to hear that the alum makes the dye pigment more colorfast

[@Soapartisan875]

Wow the darker yellow looks almost like a quin gold it glows so beautifully both are such gorgeous colors .

[@Aluenvey]

What I often do for spice based pigments, is scan them in digitally when theyre still fresh, then sell the copies that still have the original color. I do use sometimes need to use synthetic pigments or activated charcoal for certain colors. My favourite color is tobacco brown, which was the use I found after I quit smoking.

[@Nature.Sketcher]

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@k.elmaraghy1370]

Your videos deserve more views Just informative and overall entertaining

[@dawnmcdaniel347]

Very interesting. I learned a great deal from your video.

[@Todayisthetimefor]

Thanks for sharing the process!

[@townbell2248]

Have you ever heard of spiderwort? The flowers produce a purple juice when squeezed.

[@woodsiastudio]

I think i finally understand this process! Thank you….

[@KJodiGear]

Glad it was helpful!

[@woodsiastudio]

@@KJodiGear i have an urge to figure out how to make marbled paper with the clay/earth pigments…using natural materials from local sources…so kinda rules out the seaweed thickener…any thoughts?

[@KJodiGear]

@woodsiastudio Do you follow Skye on instagram? @aequoreamarbling She will know.

[@DanielleBoon-d6p]

This is an awesome video! Definitely need to try making my own pigment sometime, this looks like a fun activity to try with my daughter. Thanks for sharing

[@8imee]

Thanks for this video, super informative, I can’t wait to give this a try!

[@stephenwalford774]

hi..really great info you have put up.im new to this and have started making some pigments..ive followed what you have done here..two things ..are there different grades of coffee filter paper as mine are just clogging up straight away? and second im not getting any foaming ..using alum and sodium carbonate as you detail in the video any ideas , or is it not that important or depending on the plant material..my first 4 are Dandelion..olive wood..sumac leaves..and plum wood, the plumb and olive come from pieces of wood ive had submerged in water for a year to keep the wood green for spoon carving..beautiful rich coloured water . Thanks

[@goodstormsgames9744]

Alum is a flocullant. It's also used in water treatment.

[@KJodiGear]

Yes. It's sometimes hard to get all of it to dissolve depending on what's in your water. It clumps together and you have to stir it for awhile.

[@mayporter5299]

Thank you, Jodi! Your demos are always so clear and helpful! I wondered - have you done light-fast tests on the pastels? I'm wondering if they are fugitive as well.

[@KJodiGear]

Yes, I recently did a lightfastness test on a rabbitbrush lake pastel (one of the ones from this video) - and it faded rather quickly! If you do Instagram, there is a short video about it on my feed @kjodigear - about 7 posts back from the most current one, you can see how much it faded.

[@gretchenhoehn136]

Wow the sunny window experient is so helpful to see! Question on lifespan of color: does ‘fixing’ the pigment with either a spray fix or a varnish create more stability? I am guessing UV light will still penetrate, but curious if you’ve tried this?

[@KJodiGear]

There are some UV blocking spray varnishes you can use. I have used them, but have not yet tested those in a sunny window. You can also frame things under UV blocking (coated) glass , I frame my watercolors that way. I plan to run some more sunny window tests to see how well the spray varnish and the glass really does, and will post another video.

[@bloomygirl315]

At 13:18, you showed the watercolors in their containers, but they didn't look like powder anymore. What did you do to get them like that? Awesome video, btw. Very informative

[@KJodiGear]

I mull the powder up with a watercolor medium that I make, (that’s how you make the paint) and pour it into little pans and let them dry. I have several videos here showing how i make watercolor paints, and how I make the medium. I have the watercolor medium recipe on my blog - todayatmydesk.weebly.com/blog scroll down to the 4/19/2020 post titles “making watercolor paint”.

[@Azuredblu]

the earth pigments or ochres we forage are supposed to last long, but have you experienced some of them being unstable as well, thank you.

[@KJodiGear]

no instability in the ochres. They are lightfast. I have started playing with changing the color of some of them with heat. (Which is historically how burnt umber and burnt sienna were made.)

[@sophievautour8573]

Do you know the difference between calcium carbonate and calcium acetate? I am trying to make sense of how to use foraged egg and snail shells to precipitate lakes

[@javonford16]

Calcium acetate is water soluble. You could try and make lake pigment by soaking the dye in calcium acetate solution and then adding sodium carbonate which will precipitate calcium carbonate, basically making a colored chalk

[@Techartskitty]

I learned so much! Such an amazing video , loved how you showed the ph and talk about lightfastness. Would make a Great project for students to learn! Do you sell your pigments?

[@KJodiGear]

Thank you! I sometimes sell the paints I make from them, and I want to make up some small sample pigment boxes for sale, but just haven't yet. When I do offer things for sale, it's usually on my Instagram channel @kjodigear

[@townbell2248]

I didn’t know lake pigments could be used for pastels. Could lavender flowers be used the same way you showed in this video?

[@KJodiGear]

Lavender flowers are pretty pale - I made ink from them (very pale), but not a lake pigment.

[@townbell2248]

@@KJodiGear I have had aloe plants stain my white shirt before. I bet they might be an idea to look into.

[@blueviolets2022]

Very interesting. But why do you also put the green parts? Do they change the color any? I'm going g to have to try this, it looks like a fun project!

[@KJodiGear]

The small amounts of green in with these yellow flowers don't really change the color, so it doesn't matter if they go in the dye bath too.

[@1aliveandwell]

So pretty a design when your using the glass thing with "Lake" on the glass, if could frame that on a wall. Use dyes for wool and cotton, but read if laked, wont work on cotton later. Am researching what else besides alum works for laking, and you use calcium carb(chalk), but read of bismuth (thought of buying it at dollarstore). If you changed that pH, would your pigment colors have changed? So many interesting things you show !!

[@KJodiGear]

@aliveandwell early on, i experimented with changing the pH of the dye to get a different color, then doing the laking process, and found that if I made the dye too acidic, the laking process didn’t work. Sometimes the process completely changes the color on its own - I have a couple of purple leafed trees and the dye is purple, but when you add the sodium carbonate, the lake pigment turns green.

[@1aliveandwell]

@@KJodiGear think to dye wool from a lake, acid is added (so called a split lake)(wish worked on cotton fabric also, will try painting on fabric, then after mordant)

[@KJodiGear]

@@1aliveandwell yes, that would make sense that acid would undo it. (As when you add it beforehand, it doesn't allow the precipitate to form)

[@1aliveandwell]

@@KJodiGear just found this by M Garcia on chem of Al in clay, think is saying using lime or ashes to make useable?! kzbin.info/www/bejne/jHXSpauanKuXj6M You have clear information on your videos

[@sophievautour8573]

Do you know the difference between calcium catbonate and calcium acetate? And lime, and which one is used for lake pugments? I would like to collect my own shells for lake-making

[@KJodiGear]

I make lake pigments using alum and either sodium carbonate (washing soda, found in the grocery store cleaning aisle) or calcium carbonate (which I get by either grinding up eggshells, or I buy it in powdered form - ground limestone/chalk)

[@windsurfingphd]

Hi there, did you test the light fastness of marigold in the resulted pigment? I am not too hopeful, but just curious. BTW, I've never heard Rabbit Brush. Is it a plant?? Anyways, I am trying to create watercolor pigments with the lake process you are describing in this video, using fabric dyes (from Dharma Co). Fabric dyes are not natural dyes, but produced by chemical reactions. So, I am little hopeful they may not be fugitive. Have you tried them? Thanks for the video.

[@KJodiGear]

All botanical pigments fade eventually (Yes, I have tests the marigold). Don’t know if the laking process will work with synthetic dyes, let me know your results. My feeling is if you want to make watercolors from synthetic colors, you might as well skip the dye,part and start with the synthetic pigments themselves, ones that are made to make paint with. Kremer pigments sells everything, earth mineral and synthetic and even historical pigments, they are a good company to order from.

[@windsurfingphd]

@@KJodiGear I am trying to spend "minimal" amount of money on pigments as some have become very expensive (Cobalts and Cadmiums). I can make Cerulean and Cobalt blues, violets and greens at my place (have a small chem lab), but Cobalt compounds have also become expensive. To create an inert blue pigment the requires acids like HNO3 and HCl are expensive also. I am trying to learn how to make Azo yellow, and Pyrrol red, and Phthalo blue (but I don't like the staining part of it) pigments from scratch. They all originate from organic compounds, and the reactions are quite different (and unexpected) compared to their inorganic counterparts. It is a journey whichever angle you look at. The safest (and healthiest) bet would be forming a lake to transfer the color onto alum. Lakes have worked for me to produce Alizarin Crimson and Carmine in the past from Madder and Cochiniel. Both pigments are considerably light fast. It is interesting to note that your Rabbit Brush yellow "retained" its color intensity after so many years of exposure to sun when you used CaCO3 instead of Na2CO3. I would have thought you would have gotten a pale yellow because you used CaCO3 which is basically chalk, and mainly used as a filler in watercolor tubes. But, instead you got almost medium to dark Cadmium yellow. May I ask how Marigold light fastness test turned out? BTW, a really good pigment place at a reasonable price is RGH pigments in upstate NY. rghartistoilpaint.com/ Take care.

[@KJodiGear]

@@windsurfingphd rabbit brush is a plant that grows abundantly here in the west, also known as Chamisa, I think Ericameria is the proper name. The yellow flowers are a traditional dye plant.

[@KJodiGear]

@@windsurfingphdThe chroma of the lake pigment is dependent on a couple of things - how concentrated your dye solution is, and how much alum/precipitator (either sodium carbonate or calcium carbonate) you add to that dye solution. I like a concentrated dye because a concentrated (high chroma) paint is more useful to me as a a watercolor artist. If you add the same amount of alum/precipitator to both a weak dye and a strong dye, you will get a pale pigment and a strong pigment. Both compounds in the alum/sodium carbonate lake are water soluble, so if you have extras of either of those after they precipitate, you can rinse them out. I use about twice as much alum as sodium carbonate (by volume) when I make that lake - there is a way to know exactly how much of each by weight to add so there is no leftover of one or the other, but it doesn’t matter since I can wash the pigment and get rid of whatever didn’t react. The calcium carbonate (chalk) lake is another story - as the chalk is not water soluble, I won’t be able to rinse out any extra (that didn’t react with the alum) when I dry the pigment in the filter. So if I add too much Calcium Carbonate, it will just be adding extra chalk to the lake pigment and the entire pigment will look paler. I tend to use about 1/4-3/4 the amount of calcium carbonate to the amount of alum I use when I make that lake pigment. (Hope this makes sense). I’m going to write a second comment about the marigold lake/light fasteness issues.

[@KJodiGear]

⁠@@windsurfingphdSo I can’t find the marigold lake light fastness test - which means I need to do another one. I can tell you with certainty that it will fade. All botanical pigments fade. Even cochineal, madder, and indigo. Some just fade more slowly than others do. (In my experiments, Indigo and cochineal and weld are slow faders - which is probably they are so poplular in textiles) Some botanical pigments of will also change color - turn brown - probably due to oxidation, or pH of the paper. The concept of lightfastness is kind of interesting - to me, lightfast means “does not fade when exposed to UV light - but if you look at the definition of the ratings on paints - they don’t really mean that. There are synthetic pigments (made into paints) we were told were light fast that are not. Look up up Jane Blundell light fast tests - she tested many professional brands of watercolors and there were some surprising results. I love the color of natural indigo, and I bought a tube of Daniel Smith Indigo watercolor paint (indanthrone blue and lamp black mixture) and tested it next to my natural indigo, and a mix I made with synthetic ultramarine blue and a foraged grey soil, and the only one that hasn’t faded is the ultramarine/grey foraged pigment. The other two haven’t faded much, but they have faded.

[@tamwall2070]

How do you differentiate what rocks are lightfast and not? Or any other natural mediums? TIA

[@KJodiGear]

The iron oxide/hydroxide earth pigments are light-fast. So rocks that you find that are soft enough to grind will make a light-fast paint. The color/dye you get from plants (the botanical pigments) will not be light-fast. Some will last longer than others, but they will all fade in UV light.

[@Syd_thatpup]

I have a few questions! (Anyone can answer as long as you have the knowledge! Also apologies for spelling + grammar mistakes) 1. Do you need EXACT measurements for doing this? Im just a 15 year old looking for a fun craft project and i dont care about the watercolors im making lasting a long time. As long as i can take a look at them a month later im good. 2. Can you do fruits for coloring? Im worried about the sugar in the fruits possibly messing up the project as i had ideas to do red cabbage, raspberries, and blackberries. (And also to add onto the botanical pigments i was wondering if i could use dandelions and grass? I feel as if i use enough dandelion i can get a nice yellow-green color!) I feel i had another question i had to ask as i remember i had 3 but it seems i have forgotten. Any helpful answers to these questions are greatly appreciated! (And also a bunch of general information that would be helpful to beginners is also appreciated :D)

[@KJodiGear]

Any plant material (including fruits) will work for this as long as whatever you use makes a strong dye. Not all plants make a good strong dye. Be aware that a lot of them change colors when the pH changes, and many fade. I have a great purple leafed tree in my yard, but it makes a dark green lake pigment (it has to do with pH). I have made a lake pigment from dandelion flowers, it’s a paler yellow green color than some other yellow flowers.

[@Syd_thatpup]

@KJodiGear thank you so much!! 💙🎨

[@KJodiGear]

@@Syd_thatpup as far as measurements, it’s all an experiment, so keep notes so you remember what works for you. For my lake pigments, I aim for about 1-2 cups of a dye solution, about a tablespoon of alum, and ether 1/2 tablespoon sodium carbonate (washing soda) or 2 teaspoons of calcium carbonate (chalk)

[@My-World2007]

Can you make ink with these?

[@KJodiGear]

Yes, if you grind the particles finely enough they can be mixed with water, gum arabic and a drop of clove oil to make an ink. But it will be a pigment ink, so it will need to be shaken before use, the pigment particles won’t stay suspended in solution like a dye would. If you use a dip pen, the other thing you can do is use your watercolor as ink, just load the nib with a watercolor brush dipped in the paint after you’ve moistened your paint pan.

[@dannylionsmom]

Alum and sodium carbonate or alum and calcium carbonate will form the precipitate - mix in h20.

[@KJodiGear]

That’s exactly right, alum and sodium carbonate or alum and calcium carbonate are used to make the lake pigment precipitate.

[@dannylionsmom]

@@KJodiGear thank you. ❤️

[@sophievautour8573]

Maple pod,is that the seed of the maple tree?!

[@KJodiGear]

Yes, I simmered maple tree seed pods to make the dye.

[@blueviolets2022]

Do you do anything to fix the ph?

[@KJodiGear]

No, I don't change the pH after I've done the laking process. (Is that what you are asking?)

[@jeonbakson2576]

Thank you for your tutorial.

[@KJodiGear]

You are welcome!

[@jeonbakson2576]

I started trying to get lake pigments from tea. When I added alum and soda(1:1) to the tea, I could see a light brown precipitate, but when it dried completely, it turned completely white. Is there something wrong with my recipe? And I think just baking soda precipitates from solution.Thank you!

[@KJodiGear]

Did you use baking soda or washing soda? Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, washing soda is sodium carbonate. (You need to use washing soda).

[@jeonbakson2576]

I use my baking soda, so I need use washing soda instead. Thanks, I think I get the reason,I'll try it again.

[@KJodiGear]

@@jeonbakson2576 washing soda, it's in the cleaning aisle. Box says washing soda, make sure the ingredients say sodium carbonate. Arm and hammer makes it.

[@jeonbakson2576]

Thanks.

[@gretchenhoehn136]

Wow the sunny window experient is so helpful to see! Question on lifespan of color: does ‘fixing’ the pigment with either a spray fix or a varnish create more stability? I am guessing UV light will still penetrate, but curious if you’ve tried this?

[@KJodiGear]

Fixing it with UV varnish, and framing under UV blocking glass should create more stability (fading wise) - but I have not done the experiments yet to test how well it works. (I will)