I have been very occupied over the last five months with making my own watercolours, it has proved to be a trial and a joy, after many mistakes I now have a good selection of usable watercolours, and my tests have proved positive. I have created swatches, colour mixes on paper, light fast tests, and now painted quite a number of paintings solely in my very own paints….warning lots of photos to follow, which I hope are more self explanatory than me waffling on. After lots of mulling, and mixing I am taking a break to just enjoy using my little gems of colour.

The first selection of photos shows the glass muller, lots of blending, to get the consistency smooth, and a selection of my created paints.

These photos show all my swatches created, gradients of each colour and transparency.

Colour mixing, checking out how well my colours work together.

Light -fast test, I left them in the window for quite some time,an area blacked out for comparison, no changed occurred, yipeee.

Wipeout, I wanted to see if my paint would erase with a damp brush, they did, some variations with each colour, but I guess this is down to the staining properties of each pigment used.

Handmade watercolours lift out test

Some of my paintings created so far with my own handmade watercolours.

‘In thought’ memory of ‘ minnie’ parrot watercolour, 30×40 cm framed and mounted. Mount is covered in feathers from the parrot which were shed during his life time. This is a request from a patient at work, a memory of a special friend sadly missed

“Ella” handmade watercolour 10×7″ 140 lb coldpress (fortune centre)

Cobweb 10×7″ 140 lb cold press with own handmade watercolour paint

‘Smoker’ 10×7″ 140lb coldpress with own hand made watercolour paint

‘Lists Espera’ handmade watercolour 12×9″ 140 lb coldpress 

‘La la’ 9×12″ coldpress 140lb arches painted using homemade watercolour paint