Make Your Own Tempera Paint and Pigments/Dyes! Fast Drying. Historical Style, Traditional Paint & Dyes From Egg and Naturally Extracted Colors.

Take your painting to the next level by making your own egg tempera paint and natural pigments or dyes from nature! In this project we will add color from a few natural sources to our own home made tempera paints! It is very easy to do and can be made from things all around you so lets dive right in!

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Not many supplies will be needed but I will list all the supplies I used, or similar, and the tools I used. Some of these links on Amazon are through Amazon's Whole Foods Market which might not be available in your area but is cheaper then normal Amazon and has fresh food groceries like Eggs and Butter.

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Ingredients You Will Need:

• Required: Large Eggs (Whole Foods) - (I used 4 in this project, you could use more or less depending on how much paint you want to make.)
• Required: Distilled White Vinegar - (This is used to make the paint last longer.)
• Sliced Beets (For Red Pigment) (Whole Foods) - (You could use beet juice as well if it pure beet juice.)
• Matcha Blend Green Tea (For Green Pigment) (Whole Foods) - (I attempted to use this for green, see later steps for results.)

Tools & Supplies You Will Need:

• Hot Plate or Stove - (Needed to process grass clippings into dye.)
• Stainless Skillet or Pot - (Needed to cook grass clippings in. Stainless steel is recommended so you can use metal utensils in it. You could also use an old pot or pan you have lying around.)
• Stainless Spatula - (Needed to stir, rotate, and scrape the grass clippings.)
• Strainer - (Used to remove grass clippings from the water. I used an old damaged one I had lying around.)
• Scissors - (Needed to cut out the grass clippings smaller. Same brand I used.)
• Disposable Bowls - (You could use normal bowls but they may get stained from the paint permanently.)
• Watercolor Paper - (Ideally for this type of paint you would want to use material attached to solid wood as it may crack on canvas. But if you are doing it for fun then watercolor paper should be fine.)
• Paint Brushes - (Paint brushes would work much better, but since I didn't have any at the time of doing this I used Q-tips which sort of worked but are not recommended.)
• Small Bucket, Bowl, or Container - (Used to strain the grass clippings. I used an old bucket.)
• Small Glass Jars - (Used to pour grass clippings pigment into, would also be useful for storing your paint afterwards.)
• Bottles With Eye Droppers - (This is needed to do a few drops of distilled white vinegar.)
• Super Simple Version, Food Coloring - (If you don't want to make your own pigments or dyes this is a super simple way to try it out, then all you need is an egg.)

I wanted to see what color I could get out of grass clippings so this is where we begin. Collect some grass and place into the skillet or a pot. Its a good idea to pick out anything like sticks, leaves, dirt, etc. If you have grass clippings from the lawn mower that would work too but I am in the wrong season for that.

Now we pour water over the grass clippings and then press them down into the water. Put just enough to cover the grass clippings but not too much that it overflows. Put this over your hot plate or stove and turn on the heat.

While the hot plate was heating up I started cutting the grass clippings into small maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch sizes. It doesn't really matter the size I just made most of them smaller so it would be easier to stir and so more of the color would seep into the water. You could do this before putting grass into the skillet and pouring water over it as well if you really wanted to.

Periodically I would smash the grass clippings from the top to the bottom and stir it around to try and release more color into the water.

As the grass clippings were boiling I would periodically check the color by pressing the spatula down into the water and sometimes using a glass container take some out to check its color and pour it back in. Once you get a color you like you can move on. It will smell a lot like tea the whole time you are boiling it.

I let it cool overnight as it was late by the time I finished boiling it. If you do this it will get even more color by morning which worked out nicely for me.

I gave all the grass clippings one final squeeze before discarding them.

Now pour the grass clippings juice through the strainer into a bucket, bowl, or container and then rinse out your skillet removing all grass clippings. Pour it back into the skillet and strain it one more time if you noticed any grass got through. Then rinse the skillet one more time and you are ready for the next step.

Now pour the grass clippings liquid back into the skillet and turn on the hot plate or stove high enough to bring it to a boil.

This will take some time depending on the amount of water you started with, now its time to boil off the excess water. This will change the color some and will make it highly concentrated which works out a lot better! You want stronger colors to use with this paint as you will see later on.

Now pour your grass dye into a glass so it can cool off a bit and we can get ready for the next step. Some water left is still fine, we just want it to be highly concentrated. Anything left on the skillet like you see in the pictures add a bit more water and scrape it all into the water using the spatula then pour that also into the glass.

Now we get to the steps of actually making the paint, crack one egg carefully and pour some of the egg whites off into a bowl. Then pour the egg yolk carefully into your hand and let it roll from one hand to the other until nearly all the egg whites have come off of it. You can also do this with one hand letting it roll up and down your fingers like I had to do to also hold the camera. Do not break the egg yolk or you will have to start over. You could also pour it from one egg shell half to the other but that is more likely to puncture the egg yolk and less fun. Don't discard the egg whites or egg yolks as we will use them both later.

The egg yolk is self contained inside of a sac, so once you have removed all the egg whites hold your hand over a different bowl and carefully pinch one corner of it and drain all the egg yolk from inside of the sac. Then drain all you can out of the egg yolk sac without having the sac fall into the bowl. Once its done then discard the egg yolk sac, all we need is the egg yolk fluid inside.

With the egg yolk drained completely its time to add a few drops of vinegar to the liquid. I went for 5 drops but you can add more or less depending on the size of the egg. This will make your paint last longer as this paint does start to break down quickly without anything added.

Pour in the grass dye a bit at a time and stir it well. I just used my finger to stir the dye into the egg yolks. Keep adding dye till you get the color you want, you will want darker then you may think with this type of paint. Once this is done congratulations you have now made your own tempera paint out of your own dye!

Add some water, a little at a time, to the grass tempera paint so its a bit less greasy. Try not to make it too watery though. You can always add more water later if needed.

I tried using green tea to make a tempera paint but my results were not satisfactory. I am pretty sure this could still work but you will have to brew an extra strong batch of green tea and then boil off all the excess water like we did with the grass clippings. I would have done this but I was running out of time. I was going for more of a green paint but it didn't quite work as you will see later. out of desperation I tried pouring the green tea bag into the tempera paint but that didn't help and just made it chunky. I would not recommend doing that. I bet if you blended up spinach and boiled it, then boiled off the excess water so it was highly concentrated that it would have made a good green dye. I will have to try that in the future.

I also tried using the juice from a can of sliced beets in order to make a red paint. I poured the juice from the can a bit at a time and gave it a stir. I didn't need to add water to this one as there was enough water in the beet juice. This worked out decently but I think it would have worked better if I had boiled off the excess water just like the grass clippings so it would have been more concentrated. You could also use beet juice if it was 100% juice with no added sugars.

For this one I tried using a bit of clay I processed out of the dirt around me, the steps of making the clay are not part of this instructable but maybe part of one I do in the future. I simple dissolved some clay into a bit of water and poured it into the egg yolk liquid. The results were mixed on this one and it is the only paint I had to constantly keep stirring each time I used it.

With the tempera paints all finished its time to grab a piece of watercolor paper. Ideally instead you should use material attached to a solid board as tempera paint tends to crack on canvas. But for just testing it out watercolor paper works well enough and is much thicker then printer paper. Also grab some paint brushes, or if you can't find any and are just doing this for fun anyway grab some Q-Tips cotton swabs. I would highly recommend the paint brush instead but this is what I ended up having to use as I couldn't find one in time.

Testing out the grass tempera paint. As you can see this type of paint is a lot lighter on the paper then it is in the bowl.

Testing out the green tea tempera paint. As you can see this type of paint is a lot lighter on the paper then it is in the bowl. This one is hardly noticeable at all on the paper, other then the chunks. Green tea would have to be made much stronger and all excess water boiled off for this to maybe work.

Testing out the earth clay tempera paint, this is the only one that requires me to stir it before painting every time. It would appear using clay processed from the dirt around me does not make the best dye. Perhaps it would work better if I dissolved a lot more clay into water and boiled it off but I am not sure that would make it work better on this one. That being said it does work and is somewhat brown. As you can see this type of paint is a lot lighter on the paper then it is in the bowl.

Testing out the red beet tempera paint. This one actually worked out decently for what it was. I think it would have worked even better had I boiled off the excess water first. As you can see this type of paint is a lot lighter on the paper then it is in the bowl.

This is the first layer completed for each of the tempera paints. As you can see this type of paint is a lot lighter on the paper then in the bowl. A higher concentrated dye would be recommended for it. You can see the Q-Tips in each of the paints, paint brushes would have worked better.

With the small tests done lets try doing a longer stroke to see if it makes a difference. To some degree it does, this paint will definitely require more then one layer. Plus side it dries rather quickly between layers taking only maybe 10 to 20 minutes between each layer.

Make sure the layer is completely dry then you can paint another layer on top of it. This paint is very forgiving with how light it is it would be easy enough to cover up with another layer.

I did a final fourth layer before finishing this painting. So as you can see from this you can make it darker but it will take a few layers in order to get it to that point. Once you have your painting how you like it let it dry completely before doing the next step.

In order to make it last longer and protect the layers of paint from moisture, dust, and interactivity with the other coatings once its completely dry I carefully coated all the paint with a thin layer of egg whites diluted in water. Be very careful with this layer or you may ruin your painting. I did some parts of it too thick while trying to take a picture at the same time but what you want is a thin layer. Once that layer is completely dry if you want you can apply a second layer to be extra sure it lasts. I tried a piece of paper towel folded over a few times but you will probably want to use something better like a foam paint brush possibly. Apply it lightly and carefully. Try it on a junk painting like this one before you put it on a good painting in order to get a feel for it.

Here are a few more pictures of the completed tempera paints with what they are made from to the sides of the bowls. Also included is what the final painting looked like after the egg white layer dried.

If you are not familiar with what tempera paint is and want a bit more details here you go. Tempera, also known as egg tempera is a permanent, fast-drying paint consisting of colored pigments mixed in egg yolks. Tempera also refers to the paintings done using this medium. Tempera paintings are very long-lasting and we have some from the first century AD that still exist to this day. This was a very common method of painting up until the 1500's. If you want to learn more about the history and see some examples of paintings done with it check out the wikipedia here and can see 15 iconic tempera paintings here.

If you are wondering how long the paint itself will last I have seen 3 days on tempera paint without anything like vinegar. With vinegar I have seen something more like 7 days. I imagine it will last longer if you keep it in the refrigerator, though I would mark that its paint not food. I currently have a few I am leaving out to see how they age and will update here later when I know. Depending on what you use as a dye might make the paint breakdown faster as well so keep that in mind.

If you want a great answer on making your paintings last longer check out this question on stack exchange here [Archive Link].

Historically they would also add things like frankincense to the mix to help with the smell as it dries. You could also experiment adding other essential oils that you like. I didn't add anything and will see what the smell does as time goes on.

Update (12/13/21): Having left out the leftover paint from this project I can confirm that no vinegar starts to stink in about 3 days and with vinegar makes it about 7. Not all of them stink after 7 days but the one made with clay smells the worst. Most of them seem to have separated and the egg is likely breaking down at this point. I haven't tried the refrigerator but it would probably add a few days at least. It might be freezable as well I will have to test that at some point, if it is that would add a long time to the paint lasting. All the ones I tested only had 5-6 drops of vinegar to one egg. This type of paint is best to make it as you need it and add the pigment or dye to it then.

Other Ideas

Here are some other ideas of what could be tried to make different pigment or dye colors. I haven't tried these yet they are just a few thoughts that come to mind that I haven't looked up or tried so it could go either way. With all of these ideas its safe to assume you would have to probably add water, boil it to extract the color, then boil off the excess water to make it more concentrated.

• Blended spinach might give a good green.
• Blended lemon peel might give a good yellow.
• Blended carrots might give a good orange.
• Blended blueberries might give a good blue.
• Crushed pine cone might give a brown.
• Blended cherries might give a good red.
• Crushed charcoal might give a good black or it might have the earth clay problem where you have to constantly stir it. Not charcoal briquettes that you cook with, those have other chemicals added.
• Flour might give a good white, maybe.

If you would like to support me in making these projects you can do so here.

Give this project a try, its very easy to do and if you want super simple version you can just get some food coloring and add it to the egg yolks liquid with a tiny bit of vinegar in it. I tried a food coloring mixed tempera paint that I didn't photograph and it turned out good.