Making the most blue natural pigment out of lapis lazuli into handmade watercolor paint
Fra Angelico Blue. The commercial name for the purest form of natural PB29, Lapis Lazuli.
Lapis Lazuli is a mineral that consists mostly out of Lazurite, Calcite, Sodalite and Pyrite. To get the blue out of this mineral (coming from Lazurite) one needs to purify it.
This video shows the entire process of what makes this the most artisanal paint I've ever made. I already make my own binder since day one, and I print my own pans with recycled PLA.. but I've never ground and purified a pigment before for my handmade watercolor paints.
I've done this the Ceninni way.
Cennino Cennini was an Italian medieval artist. He was the first to record, in a very detailed way, all the artisanal and artistic skills and methods from that time. A books named Il Libro dell'Arte. He wasn't the one who invented purifying Lapis in such manner, but he did give us a step by step guide to follow.
So I bought the book and followed his steps with the materials we now have, though I needed some things I didn't have yet; bees wax, pine rosin, gum mastic, potash and most importantly, a big chuck of Lapis Lazuli.
First I needed to smash and grind the Lapis mineral into a fine powder. As you can see in the video, this took some steps and quite some work to get me enough of it.
Once I had the powder (this isn't pigment yet) I weighed and melted the ingredients. Once melted I mixed the hot liquid with the Lapis powder, forming a paste. After cooling down a bit, I kneaded and rolled this paste into a stick.
If all the lapis powder was thoroughly mixed throughout the stick, the purifying process could begin. You need to let the stick soften again in hot water mixed with potash. In that water, I slowly started to knead, stretch and fold the stick. The longer I kept doing that, the more blue the water became.
This is what it's all about, once the blue water settled, the residue at the bottom of the bowl is the blue gold I was after!
Draining it carefully and pouring it into jars, I let it settle for a longer time. Making sure I didn't lose any of the precious blue dust I would need to make paint. After pouring this through a filter, I let the filter dry.
I scraped off the pigment, mulling it carefully with water. This is to make sure the particles aren't mulled too fine. The finer the pigment, the less blue it will be.
The one thing that was left to do after this, was to mix it with my binder (Gum Arabic, Honey and Glycerine in water) and pour it into pans.
I hoped you liked seeing this process from start to finish, with all the things that come with making handmade watercolors!
Because of the labor, I won't be making this very often. But I did enjoy the process, following steps that were written down hundreds of years ago.
The pigment you see in the video isn't the only Fra Angelico Blue I have, but I don't have a lot.
These will be open for pre-order soon. Though they will be pricey..
#handmadewatercolors #ultramarine #handmadepaint #makingcolors #cennini #watercolor #lazurite #medieval #lapislazuli #blue #pb29 #artisan #granulatingwatercolor #mineral #pigment
Bro made enchanted paint-
This just goes to show the effort that ancient people had to go through to get the stunning art pieces we see in the museum today. Paint making is a craftmanship that can take years to learn and master, not something anyone can just do. Lapis for require much more work than just smashing rocks with hammer. It requires hours or even days of grinding and even then, you have to select the finest of finest grains through special method. You can't just put the thing in oil because as you've experienced, you will just get wet blue sand. Then you also need the skill to add correct additives like oil and thickener to get the right tone and consistency. You want a paint not just blue colored water after all.
I was wondering how they seperated the lesser quality pigment and inclusions in the lapis from the good stuff but never imagined making it inti a stick and then washing the finer, more saturater particles out. It's so clever! People from the past havr always been smarter than history remembers to credit them for.
Thanks for this amazing video. I wondered why Della Magna sells their Fra Angelico watercolor for over $100 per full pan. I also found a pigment seller online that has pre-ground (40 micron) Fra Angelico blue pigment made using the Cennini method. They sell it for not less than $14/gram (if you buy a 50 or 100 gram batch). Now it makes sense! That is a painstaking process, and clearly a labor of love. You Dutchies have a deep, rich history of paint making. Ik studeer nu ongeveer een jaar Nederlands en wil graag ooit naar Nederland verhuizen. I look forward to your Etsy store reopening, Laurens!
Thank you so much David! And another enormous thank you from you other message I just received!!! 🙏🙏🙏 can’t express how much I appreciate it! I will have this paint for sale (though it’s on the higher scale of expensive..) next shop opening or the one after. I’m almost out of pigment so I need to make a new batch. Since I started looking into this pigment and the process, I discovered there are a lot of counterfeit version almost (emphasis on almost) indistinguishable.. so I’m solely making my own 😁 any reason for moving here? Apart from a lot of cultural things that it 😅
@@dirtyblueshop If you make some Quin. Gold with the extinct and elusive PO49 I'll certainly buy some of that as well. As for why I'd like to move to NL, it's a combination of things. I'm from the USA and am increasingly disappointed with so much of what I see here. I'd like to live in a more progressive country - a full democracy, as opposed to the significantly flawed one here. The Netherlands has a rich history of arts and culture. And man, do you produce some great speed skaters and cyclists - both road and cyclocross! 😁Orange boven!
@davidschonberger8609 Quinacridone gold PO49, from (dry) pigment to handmade watercolor paint kzhead.info/sun/pb2udMucb3yqoXk/bejne.html 😉 it’s part of my regular line as long as I have the pigment 🧡
Beautiful color and granulation
You made amazing and impressive Lapis Lazuli watercolor. I own Daniel Smith and DaVinci watercolors and also bought 10g dry powder from natural pigments, and can say that all of them were overpriced gray disappointments. Now I know that they did not purify the pigment extracting only the finest blue particles the way you did, and that is the reason their color is dull and gray blue. Your final watercolor is really stunning vibrant blue as lapis lazuli should be. Thank you so much for creating this video and sharing. Have a fantastic day.
Thank you so much for these words! Lapis is quite a difficult pigment when it comes to paint. Fake version or “cut” versions are very common..
I’m in aww… such a difficult but beautiful! Thank you!!
Thank you!
The blue is amazing
wow what a lot of work! worth it for that gorgeous color!
What a glorious blue :)
thank you so much for this! I've been looking everywhere to find for base instructions on how to do this myself!
My pleasure!
It’s truly a stunning blue 😊
It really is!!
An extraordinarily beautiful blue.
It really is!
Thank you for showing the process of grinding the gemstone.
My pleasure!!
How come I missed this video?! Oh Oh.... I can testify: this Fra Angelico is as angelic as it looks. I baught a dot pan that was filled to the brim and color was blue as the robe of the Virgin Mary ( for which the color often was used in the paintings). It's not a paint I use on daily base but it's.... yummy beautiful. Great to see this proces lined up in one video, Laurens.
😊🙏
Just WOW!
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Wow this was labor intensive. Very interesting, thanks!
Thank you! 🙏
@@dirtyblueshop you’re welcome!
He’s back! 😄
We’re watching the same videos. 🥳👍
@@shadowguard3578 I always like it when I bump into people here in the comments 😄
Me too. See you around! 🤩
@@shadowguard3578 See you! Always a pleasure 😃.
@@awatercolourist 👋☺️
I have the book that this recipe is from, and over the years, I've been collecting a small batch of lapis lazuli, whenever I'm able to get some. I still wanted to get a bit more, and then get whatever other materials I need (the wax/resin to make them into sticks), and then I'm going to give it a try. I study and re-create medieval illuminations, and I've made lamp black and egg shell white before from scratch, and I have some pre-made powdered pigments that I've made into paint as well, but making Ultramarine, even if it's not the best quality for the first time making it, is kind of my big project that I want to do, once I get everything I need for it.
It’s really worth it to do it yourself! 💪
@@dirtyblueshopI plan to! I even got a cast iron mortar and pestle to crush it up :)
excellent.
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Great video 💯
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Can you please share the proportions of your rewetting binder ingredient list? Would love to try. Thank you
I have two videos on binder! I’m not sharing my exact recipe but you can get a really close own version!
Best explanation ever
Thank you so much! 🙏
I loved the video. But I have a question, is it suitable for painting on plaster?
Theoretically.. it would be. It it wouldn’t do the paint any justice. You can compare it by pairing on unsized paper when working with watercolor paint.
@@dirtyblueshop thank you very much!!!
Why do you add potash to the water when extracting the pigment from the wax? Is it safe on the hands?
Because it’s in the recipe 😅😉 well.. I’m using a tiny amount, it should be safe. Though I’ll be using gloves next video 😉
@@dirtyblueshop Thanks!
Hi, stupid question from a paint-making newbie. Why's the lapis lazuli pigment extraction has to be done with the "stick and wash" method? (I don't know the proper name, my bad) Any particular reason why? Is it possible to use the "dilute the mineral grounds and pick the pigmented water then letting it dry" method? (like extracting other mineral pigments) Or is it not? Pardon the stupid question. Thank you, I love your videos!
It isn’t, there are more ways to purify the pigment. There’s also a foam method where the most blue particles stick to the bubbles of the foam and heavier “dirt” sinks to the bottom. This is just one that I particularly like, and it does give one of the purest blues with levels of lesser blues in the next wash cycles, until you’re left with lapis ash
And no such things as a stupid question! 🤗
I got a question, why not have the binder be gum and oil ? I would very much like to do this but my use would be for quill ink
Well, gum Arabic is a water-soluble substance. I never tried is with oil, but since I make watercolors and oil rejects water, it wouldn’t make sense for me. You could have a look at shellac?
@@dirtyblueshop that makes sense, iv just been trying to figure the best way to make ink for my quill and if it's water base it won't hole long enough to write anything without dipping every 15 seconds.
@@jessicavalor7437 there are retarders available, also for watercolors! I might experiment with them in a future video
check out bubblehash bags they go from 25micron to 220 micron i think you would enjoy them for fine powders for your pigments
Okay wow! Thanks!!! 🤙😁
Can you give a "guess-estimate" on how long the whole process takes ? It seems to take a lot of time and man-hours...
Just the making of the pigment, for a small amount of “end product”, I think close to 4 hours when you add everything up. Excluding the time in between steps/waiting
Oh now i get why this one is so expensive. Still out of budget though 😅
What happens to the depleted dough sticks nowadays? What did they do with them historically, do you happen to know?
I just looked it up in the original method “just throw it away since it is no longer of use” .. this is when no color, so after lapis ash, will come out of it.
The finer you mull it the less blue it will be - is this your own experience or does CC advise this? It makes little sense to me. With lead flake white it is advised by CC that the longer it is ground or mulled, the better. Why this should be any different with lapis I wonder
My own experience and it’s found in every other source. Same goes for a lot of other minerals. When you would compare it to glass for instance, the finer you’d make that the white it looks. It get lighter, not “blue-er”
@@dirtyblueshop Yes, CC confirms this too. I made the dough stage this evening. It is resting now. Christ it was a bi*** to grind in the mortar and pestle!! Recently made stack process lead white. That is fun too. The trad way with vinegar and horse manure. The mulling is the key, the more work, the better. The white has a unique quality, it has a pearlescent quality, absolutely beautiful. Has to be seen with the naked eye, a photo will not capture it..
4:44 "binder" is too vague. what is that? I was expecting yolk and white wine :-)
Well I make handmade watercolor paint exclusively so in my case it’s a gum Arabic solution with honey
First!