DIY: Watercolour Paints with Natural Ingredients

Since I was a little girl, I always loved colours and paints and thinks colourful. By the age I was 11 my mom signed me up for fabric painting. I was the only young person in the class but I continued and loved it! When I hit high school I gave it up as it wasn’t something cool kids did (insert eye roll) and I forgot about painting for a long time.

In the past years, I’ve been longing for a more creative outlet and a hobby that would allow me to experiment with colours and textures but I wasn’t really keen on jumping straight into the craft shop to buy all the supplies…what I didn’t like it anymore. What if I just really lost interest in it. What if I’m crap at it? But also, I didn’t want to buy something that I might lose interest shortly after.

There’s also the environmental impact of the paints, what to do once you are done with them, etc…So I decided to giving it a go with making my own to start with.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on IG from @sustainyoself and I was automatically inspired. I kept the idea in my mind for a while but yesterday it was time to put it in to practice…and I loved it!

DIY: Watercolour Paints with Natural Ingredients

I got what I had in my pantry and placed in little containers to add water and paint with them. Here’s what I used:

Green = Spirulina
Yellow = Turmeric
Orange/Red-ish = Paprika
Pink = Pink pitaya powder (I think beetroot would be best but didn’t have any)
Blue = Blue spirulina

To create the colours I simply added the tip of a teaspoon into the container and add a few drops of water. You might want to dissolve the powder used completely for a smoother use. For some of my paints, the grain of the powder remained so I had to use a brush to remove the excess once dried.

So here are the results after dry:

My favourite colour to use was definitely the blue spirulina. It dissolved completely in water and was still very strong. My least favourite was the pitaya, probably because it’s a little old (definitely just using to paint as of now) and didn’t dissolve completely, leaving lots of grains to be removed afterwards. I loved all colours and one day after all was dry they still look bright and gorgeous.

I even risked a few paint strokes and make a little sample of what you can create with these amazing homemade paints.

This watercolour is also great to play with the kids and teach them where some colours are created. Mix them up to create your own and have fun! As they are all edible, no harm to the little ones.

I honestly had so much fun creating this colours and I’m sure I’ll be back to paint more.

If you try it as well, please let me know and tag your creations using #eatyourselfgreen on Instagram!

Have fun!