chemistry of paint: where does paint come from?

What’s inside this paint?What gives paint its color?

If you wanted to make your own paint, what

would you need?

First, an ingredient to give the paint colour. This is called a pigment.

Some pigments start as minerals or gems, and are ground into powder.

(This is true cobalt blue, which comes from an expensive gemstone in Africa. 4 oz. of cobalt powder costs $215 USD, or $250 SGD)

Some pigments start as rocks or clays.

(This is burnt sienna, which comes from a certain soil in Italy. You bake it in a furnace, hence BURNT sienna, and you grind it up.)

Some pigments come from ground-up plants (or even juices from animals).

(This is sap green, which comes from ripe buckthorn berries. Sap green is common, cheap, and has been around for hundreds of years.)

Some pigments are made in a laboratory from chemicals. These are the newest pigments.

(This is cadmium red, which comes from a mixture of cadmium sulfide and cadmium selenium. Scientists have been making this artificial colour in labs since the 1920s.)

These pigments can make oil, acrylic, or watercolor paints, but they can also

make pastels or colored pencils.

Also, these pigments are never exactly red, blue, or yellow.

Instead, a pigment might be a dull reddish orange or a greyish

blue-green, or a bright blue-violet.

Do you recognize any of the colours here? If you start with a few, you should be able

to mix the rest.

So to make paints, the first ingredient you need is a pigment.

The other ingredient you need is called a binder, or vehicle.

the first ingredient you need is a pigment

Linseed oil + Pigment = Oil paint

Acrylic Binder + Pigment = Acrylic paint

Review from last week:Do you remember the three

differences between oil and acrylic paints?