Unfortunately, I am not yet able to offer recipes that I have successfully concocted, as I am merely beginning the experiment. I have been reading about pigments for quite some time, and desperately want to create my own palette from locally harvested organic and inorganic sources. I am an artist and not a scientist, so I will be using very crude methods that do not involve analyzing particle size, chemical composition and the like. Instead I will rely upon a few household and culinary tools, accounts from colorists from centuries ago and intuition. My kitchen will double as my lab.
My first color will be derived from copper. My town has abandoned copper mines (although, being classified as a superfund site, doesn’t make the mines that inviting), so for the time being, I have purchased a copper pipe fitting from the hardware store for the initial trial. My plan is to file the metal down, so the surface area will be maximized, and then submerse the filings in vinegar for 1-4 weeks until the copper has oxidized. I have also toyed with the idea of using lye if the vinegar doesn’t produce the desired results. Once I have the oxidized green copper, I will rinse away the residual vinegar (or lye), dry the filings and then grind them into a powdered pigment. (I understand that copper particles can be toxic if inhaled.) From here it is a matter of using medium recipes in which to suspend the pigment particles.
I’ll be very pleased if I get this far in the process, and have the opportunity to use the paint. I would like to think that paint to canvas would mark the end of the copper green trial, but I should also explore the lightfastness, permanence and opaqueness as well. I have no idea how to do these tests, but will take a stab at them once I have a final product.
I managed to get some lye for you today. Hopefully adding that to the copper vinegar mix will speed up the oxy process.