Sunday is paint making day 🖌️

This is my first test of volkonskoite, a green earth pigment also known as Russisch-grün/Russian green because it was first discovered in the Ural mountains in Russia. I was given an old German container of this pigment by one of my @bookfacearts friends. The manufacturer doesn't exist anymore so I couldn't contact them, but a little research suggests volkonskoite is very stable. I've tested it out today to work out how much binder it takes, & made some small pans to share.

The final colour is a dusky blue green. It's unlike any other green earth I've tried, although it feels a bit like some celadonite paint I tried from another maker in texture. The colour is a little bluer than celadonite though. It's beautiful 💚

The tiny ⅛-pan bioplastic pans came from Tiny Watercolors (@tinywatercolorart on Instagram)

The pieces of paper at the beginning say:

- Volkonskoite PG23 aka russisch-grün is a green earth

- 5g to ?ml binder? Binder = gum arabic, veg glycerin, honey, clove & tea tree oil

- I'm wearing a mask btw, don't redecorate ur lungs

I'm making the full video into a walkthrough, so they will pop up slower then!

Making Verona green paint. This is a more olive shade of green earth than the Kremer Nicosia green I shared here. I also have a couple of other green earths (Ok, ok... 5 of them because it's my favourite colour,) including one gathered by another artist from her backyard clay. I've made chalk paint from rocks in my own back garden, shale paint from my sister's, and I want to try making grey clay paint from the soil in my area too, but that's a bit more complicated. The method I want to try is here.

Again, I wore a suitable mask - this is technically a non-toxic pigment but no-one needs to repaint their lungs. Shop-bought pigments come with an MSDS that tells you if you need to wear FFP1/2 masks and/or gloves. Having worked in a lab I still have that stuff kicking around which is handy, but it's worth getting them to avoid dying yourself esp with the stronger synthetic pigments... I mean phthalo blues/greens take so fucken long to get off anything, truly 😅