Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks Archives - Page 4 of 6

Handmade Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

How to Make Watercolor Binder

17th May 2022

A step-by-step guide to making gum Arabic based watercolor binder for handmade watercolors The use of Gum Arabic as a binder dates back to ancient times. The presence of Gum Arabic increases watercolor brilliancy, gloss, and transparency, giving greater depth to each color. It slows down the drying time of paint, and can also be used for controlling spread when painting wet-on-wet. Watercolor paint is made by dispersing pigments of any colour in different proportions with acacia gum binder. The…

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Natural Dye Garden Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye Graden?!-Part II

12th May 2022

Two weeks ago, I went to tend my allocated garden plot to transplant saplings of dye plants into the Earth. The field was readied for gardening five weeks ago, but what awaited me was a jungle of weeds instead of a prepped garden plot. The rainy weather a week prior helped the seeds hidden in the soil, patiently waiting for the ideal conditions to sprout. All of the efforts to prepare the garden bed had been for nought. Lesson learned…

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Natural Dye Garden Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye garden?! – Part I

27th April 2022

For long as I can remember, I have always wished to have a small garden patch where I could grow my own food and botanical colors for my creative practice. Even though I have previously grown food on a balcony, this is the first time I am growing natural dye plants for making lake pigments. I’ll share my methods, challenges and learnings in growing natural dye plants in the blog series “What’s happening in my Dye Garden”! Cultivating plants and…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

How to make Lake Pigments

10th January 2022

I’d planned to write this blog for a long time but hadn’t gotten around to it until now. In this post, I’ll show you how I make lake pigments from frugal resources. I began experimenting with creating lake pigments five years ago and the unpredictability of this process really excites me! Lake pigments are an excellent way to get the most out of every drop of natural color by converting it into a pulverised state with a long shelf life.…

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For children Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

A peep in to natural watercolor paint-making workshop for Children!

11th October 2021

Nature offers us a glorious abundance of a vibrant and bedazzling palette of rainbow colors. It is easy to forget that not long ago, all dyes and paints were made using natural resources. Not to mention natural colors are safe, eco-friendly, and sustainable, and it gives pure joy to collaborate with nature to express our creative inner-self. This year during early summer, I finally got a chance to conduct a long-due natural watercolor paintmaking workshop for children titled “Colors of Nature…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

Masterclass & Interactive workshop: “Radically Sustainable Watercolors”

22nd May 2021

Do you want to learn to make sustainable and natural non-toxic watercolors? Are you an artist or someone like me who uses watercolors as a medium of expression? Do you want to create something that doesn’t harm our environment? Well, you need not come up with some eco-friendly innovation to create art. Throughout the ages, nature has been an apothecary of arts. One can obtain myriad hues of beautiful pigments from nature. Natural pigments are the purest form of color…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

How to make organic and non-toxic Holi Colors

19th March 2021

I was really looking forward to visiting my family this month but the US president’s proclamation prohibits anyone from visiting friends and family in the US from Schengen countries. So, I ended up re-booking my flights to travel at a later date. This would have been a wonderful opportunity for our son to celebrate one of the biggest Indian festivals with his Indian family with mirth – Holi! Holi – The Spring Festival of Colors Holi is a joyous and…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

How to make watercolor paint: handmade watercolors

10th March 2021

This post provides you a basic step-by-step process of making your own handmade watercolors Watercolor paint is an alluring medium of traditional fine art, which when mixed with water creates translucent layers of color on paper. The use of watercolor dates back to prehistoric times when primitive humans made paints from charcoal, ochres, and water. They applied them with fingers, sticks, or whatever was naturally available, to communicate and document their life. Since antiquity, watercolor is used as a medium…

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Hello,
I’m Jyotsna, a scientist and a watercolor artist dedicated to sustainability, currently living in the charming city of Graz, Austria. I want to extend a heartfelt welcome to Lost in Colours, where my creative pursuits are deeply rooted in an ongoing exploration to learn, gain understanding, and form a bond with the natural world that surrounds us.

If you’re looking for a way to infuse your artistic pursuits with inspiration and joy, you’ve come to the right place. Get lost in the world of colours with me and discover new ways to make a positive impact through your art!

Outstanding Course

I took Jyotsna's course on making Botanical pigments, and she is the best!

Erin Parsons

Artist

Eco-Pigment Passion

I've always loved earth pigments. ... for anyone who wants to be as green and careful as possible ... that is something that Jyotsna is passionate about

Jane Blundell

Artist

Pigment Adventures

I have done ALL of Jyotsna's courses and they are brilliant. The presentation is really nice and the content has set me off on a kind of obsessive exploration of hunting for colours in nature, making pigments and the excitment of seeing what colours will come (often unexpectedly) from a plant. If you are interested in pigment making then do those courses and then the paint making one as you will then have your own 'materials' ready. Go for it!

Alfi Spencer

Artist

Colorful Inspiration

My first introduction to the world of making my own watercolours was when I stumbled upon Jyotsna's website . And therein I was sucked into her beautiful , natural , organic and colourful world . Needless to say , I spend a lot of time going through her site and gaining from her knowledge . So when she announced an online resource I immediately signed on. It is now very helpful to have lifelong access to her online lessons in basic watercolour making from pigments . Her scientific background adds to making this resource very organised . I find her energy and happiness in doing what she does both contagious and inspiring , and this comes through in her videos. I am sure I will keep returning to her online platforms and also her course material on a very regular basis , as I continue to find and make my own way towards creating my own sustainable watercolours

Mansi Shouche

Sustainable, Comprehensive & Affordable

The courses are absolutely amazing, and I plan to sign up for all of them! The content is very comprehensive and easy to understand. Jyotsna has a PhD in chemistry and not many other people in the world would have her intimate knowledge of the dye and ink-making processes. Her passion for sustainable art making and organic farming is second to none. The price of the courses are also very affordable, and I would highly recommend this course to anyone who is interested in sustainable art practice.

Damian Talbot

Landscape Artist & Medical doctor

Transformative Journey

I just completed Jyotsna’s “Making Lake Botanicals” course and could not be happier with the content. Jyotsna’s instruction is understandable and easy to follow. I feel more confident in moving forward to making my own watercolor paints than ever before. I had a small concern about working through procedures that required using chemicals that could potentially go wrong. Her recipes are well thought out, and she goes step by step, making it easy to take notes and completely grasp the procedure, and that helped to eliminate my concern.

I was not surprised at how much I would like this course, as all of the courses and videos have been so appreciated. Of all the instruction, and instructors, I have followed, Jyotsna is, hands down, my favorite!

Sandra Wicinski