Browsing Tag

sustainable art

Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

How to make eggshell white Watercolor paint

25th January 2021

The next time you’re cooking eggs, don’t throw away the egg shells in the bin straight away. It will surprise you that you can use them for making safe and eco-friendly creamy white watercolor paint and use it for transforming your existing color palette. It also makes for a great rainy day project to get the kids involved!  White is not a color that is used by traditional watercolor artists. To achieve white in a watercolor painting you plan ahead,…

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Handmade

How to make twig pens and brushes!

6th June 2020

Elder (Sambucus nigra) or Holler as it is called in Austria grows very commonly as a shrub or small tree. Its natural habitat is on river banks and in wet woodlands.  The fruits and flowers of the Elder have long been used in traditional Austrian medicine. In fact, Elder is an absolute classic whether it is made into a syrup, roasted, or cooked into a marmalade, one or the other of these delicacies can almost always be found in an…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

How to make natural pigments from foraged raw resources!

14th April 2020

How to create handmade watercolor paints from foraged pigments. What is better; paints made from foraged natural pigments or mass-produced store-bought paints? Everything is derived from nature; unfortunately, today we are living in a world that is driven by consumerism. Imagine walking through a forest or climbing a mountain, and foraging for pigments to make your own paints just like how it was done in the bygone era, instead of going to an art supply store and purchasing a mass-produced…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks Painting & Sketching Travel Sketches

Sketching and foraging for pigments in Southeast Styria

4th January 2020

The last leg of our summer holidays last year was spent in south-eastern Styria, locally known as the Steiriches Vulkanland (Volcano land). This region was a hotspot for volcanoes – but that was 17 million years ago. Today there isn’t any lava spewing out or any scorched black earth. Nature has done its course and created a beautiful lush green landscape of rolling hills. The hillcrests in this region are covered by forest and the valleys are dominated by farmland,…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

How to make Walnut Ink

3rd August 2019

I live in the lovely city of Graz, Austria. Every morning I go for a run or ride along the river Mur, which flows through the center of Graz. I had never noticed the diversity of flora and fauna alongside the river until I adapted to my new avatar as an artist a couple of years ago Even though I have always loved being in nature it is only when I started sketching outdoors that I began to observe and…

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For children Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

Natural DIY sustainable watercolors for children

14th June 2019

Make your own children’s watercolor paints from plants! As, I learned and grew more into natural, toxin-free, and sustainable living; I was quite set on creating alternatives to traditional, non-natural toxic paints for my artwork. I wasn’t always an artist, I reconnected to this dormant artist within me four years ago, and since then I have only been working with my own natural and non-toxic handmade watercolors. For obvious reasons, I’m not thrilled when it comes to store-bought children’s arts…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

Natural Plant Inks

5th June 2019

I had started my blog  Lost in Colours with an intention to raise awareness of the environmental issues involved in art materials and to provide non-toxic, low-impact solutions. Hopefully,  I can be more regular in sharing not only my insights on this topic but also my struggles and joy of creating sustainable art! To date, I had only been using pigments from Earth in my daily art practice. I began foraging for natural pigments from plants last year after being…

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