Day two and here I am, as promised.
I spent the day doing botanical kitchen experiments and paint chemistry yesterday.
I had sooo much fun making tempera paints, I was like a mad chemist, pulverizing organic matter to make paint.
This all began one day when I was looking at dry flower petals and thought, I MUST create paint.
Anywho, I bring you my findings for the day.
Also -
It's been raining so much, which is glorious, but that means that I had a very difficult time taking indoor photos.
So, please forgive the dark cloudy vibe in my images, especially the art.
I would have retaken them on a sunny day if I wasn't doing this challenge, but since this is all about fun, I give you my bad photos for today :-)
Before I tell you about her and her friends...
Let me take you back to the day that I became obsessed with the idea of turning dried flower petals into paint or dye.
I was looking at all my dry flowers thinking, surely there is a way to create a pigment from these petals.
I thought about ways, and I decided that possibly the paint of the great masters might work.
Egg and pulverized powder was my thought.
I knew that to make tempera paint I would need a watery color and an egg yolk.
Of course, it was a bit trickier than that, and -
I did come up with some colors in the end...
But first, let me tell you about my experimental findings, ahem :-)
I began by putting dried rose petals from my garden in my food processor.
I thought, this will surely work because I've made flour from oats before.
Nope.
Not fine enough.
So, I took my sort of ground up matter and put it in my blender.
Which sent flower particles up to the heavens, so I had to put on a mask because I was starting to sneeze, and I thought, what have I done?! HAHA!
Before I go on, I must tell you that I did not follow any recipe.
I just used the knowledge that I had.
I knew I had to mix up a tinge of water with only egg yolk, and I used one egg yolk per color.
When you mix the water with the egg yolk it turns into a sort of off-white creamy milk consistency.
To that you will then add your color, which has to be in a liquid form.
I'm not sure why I thought I would grind flowers to powder and mix them with water, and voila have a color.
But that was the nutty professor in me, thinking, SHAZAM! I've got it!
And of course, I didn't.
I am laughing whilst typing this, because it really was so ridiculously funny.
I did in fact manage to make rose powder, which actually smelled amazing, and I swirled it with a bit of water, but really it was like a cream of wheat texture.
So then, I cut up some panty hose to strain the color through, and that worked okay.
But I ended up with a very pale pink beige color.
So then I tried turmeric and cinnamon, and ended up having to strain through the stocking and do all the same steps as well.
I then decided to use some natural pink dye to make two shades of pink, which really turned more coral because the egg and water is a cream color base, so there was no way I would get pink. Which I was absolutely fine with.
The paint really has a glossy sheen, and is really more like a glaze.
It dried thick and sort of shiny, almost metallic in a way.
It's all really fascinating and I have more plans to try making colors.
Beets would have worked phenomenally.
So far, I liked working with the turmeric tempera paint the best.
The cinnamon was super chunky no matter what I tried, but was kind of fun for texture because it has little flecks.
Below are some samples I made, this is the next day and they are totally dry.
So, you can see how the yolk creates this thick shiny texture.
(the paints on the page below are actually dry)
Also, there is no egg smell to the paint whatsoever.
When I got tired of trying to paint things that were just globby, I took a quite bad brush and started using only the turmeric to make faces.
(And a hint of rose for cheeks)
This went on through the rest of the afternoon.
I made about 30.
I taped a few up to take photos, but my studio is just dark from the rain.
And turning on the lights did not help to take photos, because we all know what that does.
I did get a video that was a bit better, that I will post in my Instagram stories this evening.
The sheen of the dry paint is really something, as you can see below.
I tried Yupo paper (above), card stock and heavy duty watercolor paper (below).
The turmeric girls were best on the watercolor paper.
They really are quite a nice color in person.
Soooo, overall that was a lot of fun.
Yes, I could have used acrylic paint right off the shelf, but it's fun to do these sort of projects from time to time.
My kitchen is a wreck, but fun nonetheless, haha!
I really enjoyed making these girls.
Actually, maybe I'll make a YouTube video of them to insert at the bottom of this post...?
Only wish you could see them better, if it wasn't soooo dark out.
But turmeric works!
So, that's what I did with my turmeric tempera paint.
Not a total waste of time if you're amused, and I was.
I love experimenting, do you?
Here is a history of tempera paint if you are curious.
And, here is a list of paints you can make at home, including egg yolk paint.
Shame I didn't follow the directions myself :-)
Of course, I didn't paint the Mona Lisa with my tempera paints, but I did enjoy myself as it rained.
Now to clean up my mess.
I should let you know that, I have none of these 7 day posts planned.
I'm just taking you on a 7 day adventure of the sort of things I do on a whim.
No rhyme or reason, just go with the flow and see where it takes us.
Thank you soooo much for coming along with me!
I really appreciate you being here.
I loved the comment section in the previous post, and I responded to everyone there.
What a special group of kindred spirits you are!
See you tomorrow, fancy that!
<3 <3 <3
Looove, Vanessa
Here's that little video, but I think it is a cloudy day video too :-)
Tomorrow shall be brighter, I think, what with all this glorious rain, I'm quite uncertain of what shall come, and I looove the mystery of it all.