Have you ever wanted to make your own paint? I sure have, and I finally got the opportunity to do it!

The Barnard Design Center hosted an Azurite Pigment Workshop with The Making and Knowing Project on April 17th. Our instructor explained that paint is composed of pigment and binding media and introduced us to the tools we would be using.

First, we had to grind the azurite mineral into smaller particles to work with. We passed around a mortar and pestle to grind the azurite. Particle weight corresponds to color with heavier particles being a deeper blue than lighter particles. There were also malachite impurities, which produce a green color. We dealt with the malachite at a later step.

Once the particles were powdery, we poured some onto glass plates, added water, and mulled them. I’ve seen people do this in YouTube videos before, but I never expected the extreme grating sound. However, after a few minutes, the mulling reduced the particles even further, producing a thicker consistency. I used a palette knife to scrape the pigment back towards the center and kept adding water and mulling until I made a “tree” on my muller.

Once this was done, I scooped my pigment into mussel shells. We added water and mixed to let the impure, lighter particles separate out. After 15 seconds, we poured off the water and were left with darker particles. We repeated this process a couple times until we were left with the shade we wanted. I was left with a dark blue pigment.

This is the real reason patience is a virtue: you obtain pretty colors!

We then transferred our pigment back to the glass plates, added watercolor paint binder, mulled again, and painted some masterpieces! I painted a wolf and thought the grain of the pigment matched the context.

Photos taken by author with permission from hosts.