I hate when I cannot repeat something that I have seen done. I hate when I see a great idea, that someone else does and makes look SO easy and then I cannot recreate it.
Back in June I worked the Midwest Renewable Energy Association Energy Fair. I was the coordinator for the children's workshops at the Energy Fair. Three days of musical presentations, energy related presentations, arts and crafts and games. One of those presentations was done by Ramy Selim of Sunny Day Earth Solutions (an amazing resource for sustainable products and technologies, you should go check it out!). He did a natural paint presentation for me where the kids got to make non-toxic paint and then do some painting. It was a great workshop, the paint was super simple and the kids had a ton of fun with it. I just loved the idea of being able to make paint out of ingredients that I already had in my kitchen! I knew I needed to recreate this. Ramy was giving out the recipe (which I have included in the Nitty Gritty) so I grabbed one.
I thought this was a perfect week to try and make natural paint. During the workshop Ramy used koolaid to make the different colors but I have done some dying using natural items before so I thought I could give that a try. It was a huge FAILURE on so many levels.
First of all, I couldn't remember the exact consistency that Ramy had and ours kept being so runny that it just looked like water or so think that it was like painting with watery playdough!
Second, I didn't have enough of any of the materials that I was using to do the dying (slightly rotten basil to make green, dandelions to make yellow, blueberries to make blue, raspberries to make pink and tea to make brown) to make the colors be dark enough. The raspberries did make a nice pink color but I had to use the whole berries which meant that there were seeds and bits of fruit in the paint!
Third, the process of boiling things down to make the dye and mixing the paint was so messy that Sam couldn't really help me with any of the prep work. She collected the dandelions and helped stir in the dye but that was the end of her involvement.
We did end up taking some of the paint and mixing in blue food coloring which did a great job of dying the paint but the consistency was still slightly off. This also meant that our fingers were blue after we tried to paint with it!
Natural paint is a great idea and if it would have worked out it would have been so cheap! I am not going to give up on this. I may try to find other recipes (if anyone has a good one PLEASE share!) or attempt this one again with other dyes.
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The Nitty Gritty!
Non-Toxic Paint
4 cups cold water, 1 cup boiling water, 3 cups unbleached flour, colored clay or natural colorant
Mix 2 cups flour and 2 cups water in a bowl. Add 1 cup boiling water to the bowl and mix. Add 1 cup cold water and mix. Add 1 cup flour and 1 cup white clay and mix. Add more water to desired consistency. Add colored clay (or natural colorant) to desired color. Add more water, if needed. Consistency should be like a thick milkshake.
I am determined to make this work and would love any advice on making natural paint that anyone has! Leave me some comment love so I can try this again and not feel like such a failure.
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