Our first shot at earth pigments

[WhistlingBadger]

The Badgerling has been experimenting with natural pigments and home-made paint brushes (made by chewing twigs until the fibers separate). Today we mixed up some tempera paint with egg yolks and earth pigments (colorful rocks ground into fine powder in a mortar and pestle) and did some painting with some of her twig paintbrushes. See if you can guess which ones are hers and which are mine!









Tried some out on a shoot shaft, too.


We've got a lot to learn, especially that we need a finer strainer to sort out the gritty pieces.  But this is pretty cool stuff!

[Pat B]

You can put the finely ground pigment in a jar with water and shake it well and pour off the colored water. After the silt has settled pour off the water and very fine pigment will remain. Dry it out to store it and use it as before.

[WhistlingBadger]

You can put the finely ground pigment in a jar with water and shake it well and pour off the colored water. After the silt has settled pour off the water and very fine pigment will remain. Dry it out to store it and use it as before.

Thanks for the tip, Pat.  That worked like a charm.  I sanded the grit off the arrow shaft and I'm going to try mixing the fine pigment with some hide glue for round two.  We also had a long talk with my geologist friend yesterday about where to find other colors.  Stay tuned...

[Pat B]

Please share the info from the geologist about other color pigment.

[M2A]

Good stuff there. Don't forget you might be able to heat some rock and get a different color from it. Iron in the rock can turn it more red after being in a fire.
Mike

[WhistlingBadger]

Please share the info from the geologist about other color pigment.

Well, probably nothing that would be of too much use to anyone but us, I'm afraid, since it was all very specific to this area.  But here goes. The big take-aways were:
1.  The mustard-yellow rock is, in fact, yellow ocher.  It is a fairly thin, intermediate layer in between other, more substantial layers.
2.  Directly underneath this ocher sandstone layer we should find some clay stone or silt stone (we'll have to dig for it a bit) that should have interesting purple and green colors.
3.  Anywhere we find belemnite fossils (also known as bullet fossils; quite common around here), look upslope for the rock shelf they've eroded from.  It too should contain rocks of interesting colors:  Blues, greens, grays, purples.

[bjrogg]

Pretty cool WB

I’ll try a guess.
Snail and mountains Baglerings work

Squiggly lines, bird and arrow yours.

Bjrogg

PS it’s all good

[WhistlingBadger]

Pretty cool WB

I’ll try a guess.
Snail and mountains Baglerings work

Squiggly lines, bird and arrow yours.

Bjrogg

PS it’s all good

Called it!  Thanks.  It's always fun learning something new. 

Further insights:  Egg yolks make a MUCH better binder than hide glue.  Hide glue works great, but it has about a ten second working time before it cools off and goops up.  Egg yolks are nice and thick, but workable until they dry out.

[BowEd]

Good evaluation of using materials to a nice final product.I do wonder about the resistance against moisture or rain.
For instance using it on brain tan leather for achievemant marks,celestial figures,animal figures and the like.Many times less time consuming than quill or beadwork but still getting the point across.
I've seen it done on brain tan leather and rawhide before using hide glue in astounding fashion,but still wondered the same thing about water resistance.

[WhistlingBadger]

Thanks, Ed.  I suspect water resistance will be similar to hide glue:  Not much.  If I were going to use this on a bow back or anything else that might see rain, I'd grease the daylights out of it before I took it outside.

[BowEd]

The resistance to stay away from acrylics is hard to do.
I wonder what shellack could do.
I've read of using prickly pear cactus juice used water proofing rawhide.

[BowEd]

In the past I've melted bees wax into this rawhide quiver to water proof it pretty good actually.

[WhistlingBadger]

In the past I've melted bees wax into this rawhide quiver to water proof it pretty good actually.

I've never tried straight beeswax.  I usually use about 1 part powdered pine resin, 2 parts beeswax, and 3 parts lard or bear grease to waterproof bows and leather.  Works pretty well and it's easy to rub in with a little heat.

[BowEd]

I imagine incorporating pine resin in with the beeswax might extend the time or need to reapply beeswax.In all cases heat would need to be used.