My handmade watercolours are all mixed, mulled, and poured in small batches. I use just a few simple tools and natural ingredients, and the whole process from start to finish takes about a month to create a batch of fully cured pans of paint.

The base of my paints is made from a mixture of acacia sap, honey, vegetable glycerin and water. From there I add in natural pigments and mull the paint on a big glass slab until it becomes smooth and flows well with water. Each pan of paint is filled and dried in layers so that they end up as full as possible and to reduce any cracking or bubbles. It’s a labour of love for me, and each step requires a lot of patience and attention.

I mostly use mineral based pigments, meaning colours that come from soils, clays, crushed stones or sands. Iron and manganese are some common examples of minerals that give earths a wide range of tones, from yellow, red, black, even purples and pale greens.

I also use natural indigo powder in most of my blue and green paints, but this is my only botanical pigment at the moment. I am experimenting with some other botanical colours, so stay tuned if this is something you’re interested in!

As hand foraged colours take me much more time to make I usually carry ony a handful of them at a time. You can see my current foraged collection here, but know that I also offer a wider range of colours made from natural pigments that are not foraged. These are sourced from various ethical pigment companies all around the world, though most are based within North America.

As my paints use natural pigments, the range of colours will be different from most store bought brands. Each colour will have it’s own personality on paper. Some mineral pigments have more texture, others like to flow faster in water. I always recommend painting a test swatch with each colour so you can get to know how they handle.

Sometimes mineral pigments can take a moment to activate when water is added to them. If you feel like you paints are not giving the depth of colour you’re looking for you can try priming them by adding a drop or two of water to their pan and waiting a minute until the paint starts to flow.

In short, all of my natural mineral paints are extremely resilient to UV damage. However, some of my colours do use natural Indigo powder, which is not totally lightfast. In my own art practice I appreciate the impermanence of these colours, but completely understand that some need colours that are 100% stable. The fading I’ve seen over the years is quite minimal, but if you’re worried about it I would suggest avoiding my colours that contain Indigo. This includes most of my greens (excpet Nettle) and all of my blue paints.

I’ll link a page here where you can find pictures of a lightfast test I did in the summer if you’d like to see the results yourself.