Preliminary Work

Prior to beginning my extensive research on the creation of natural pigments, I was advised by Dr. Jennifer Willet to conduct some tests using various spices sourced from my kitchen, mixed with water, to attempt creating my own paint. The objective of this was to determine my level of interest and motivation with this concept before fully committing to the year-long research.

The spices of choice utilized for the preliminary work were turmeric, cinnamon, and paprika

Paprika: not very pigmented but quite easy to blend

Cinnamon: not very pigmented (unless mixed with booking water), extremely hard to blend

Turmeric: my personal favorite, very pigmented and blends great

I created 3 swatches of each of the pigments, and I assorted them in order of the amount of water used. In the image (right), the thicker swatches have less water (left) and the lightest swatches have the most water (right). For the least pigmented spices like the cinnamon I used boiling hot water with it to leech out the color better.

Following the swatches I wanted to test out the actual pigments I made when it came to creating a painting. Therefore, I decided to do a painting of an eye and eyebrow. This is because this is my signature go-to drawing that I do on any surface that I get my hands on. This was initially very hard to illustrate because of the inconsistency of the pigments but I ended up using the large clumps of cinnamon to my advantage and worked it into the painting (pupil is large clump of cinnamon). This painting is depicted to the left. I did not want to stop there because I wanted to paint another subject that embodied the type of research I was doing; I wanted to depict a landscape of some sort. While staring at my seemingly colors palette I began to brainstorm what landmarks has these same hues. Then an idea sprung into my head: The pyramids! This was perfect because of the warm and dusty tones that I had, matched perfectly with the shadows and colors of the sand. This painting is depicted to the right.

In conclusion, I personally enjoyed this preliminary work and this is what jump started my research because I reacted so well to this task. I even though I faced a few challenges when it came to mixing the spices with water, and applying it on the paper, it was these obstacles that allowed me to adapt myself with the paint to create a satisfactory end result. In all honesty, this task made me excited to begin the process of creating natural pigments!