The possibility to paint with raw pigments is something new to me. During the years studying oil painting it was known to me that artists in the past used to prepare their own colours. In this process they were grinding the raw pigments and then mixing them with linseed oil, poppy oil, alkyds, etc.
Actually I have tried this is the past to discover that grinding is extremely important and takes allot of time and cleaning after the process. This was just not practical as today we can easily find ready to use paints.
At the same time discussing with artists that are active on art teaching I was wondering how they managed for their students the issue of expensive art supplies. Painting is an expensive hobby mainly because you will need high quality colours and high quality brushes.
So I discovered through these discussions an inexpensive way to create your own acrylic colours using raw pigments. The recipe was so simple that actually at the beginning I couldn’t believe that it could be successful.
The recipe says that you can create acrylics by mixing raw pigments with wood glue (PVA glue) diluted in water (approximately 3 parts water to 1 part glue but this depending on the thickness of the glue.)
Another variation of the recipe is the usage of a thinner form of PVA glue sold as an art supply for religious orthodox icon painting. This is used today as an easier alternative to the traditional egg tempera recipe.
A final variation and probably the best but more expensive is acrylic pigment binder.