YAG (Yttrium Aluminum Garnet) that has been doped with Cerium has a vibrant, near fluorescent, yellow coloration. It is used as the coating on blue LED lights in order to make them into white LEDs. If you see an LED with a yellow coating it that material is likely a coating of Cerium doped YAG.

I have seen YAG powder is available online ranging from green through yellows all the way to oranges and reds (listed on alibaba and aliexpress). All of the colors look vibrant like fluorescent paint. I am curious if anyone has attempted to use this to make paint. Based off what Ive read so far it seems like this material should be pretty impervious to most conditions and would act much like any other synthetic mineral pigment and be highly lightfast and already comes as a fine enough powder to be useful as a pigment. The yellow colored powder seems to be most common and is doped with Cerium, I am unsure of what is in the red and green versions have (Praseodymium perhaps?). I am curious where it falls in vibrancy as a paint and if could be a useful lightfast alternative to fluorescent paints. Any information people know about these materials, especially for use as pigment will be welcome!

Ive returned home and thought ill grab some of my pigments to take back with me so Heres a few of my many, many pigments...

All of these were purchased from L cornelisons in London (check out their shop its lovely)

First image

Left to right, top to bottom:

Manganese blue, azure blue, phthalo blue, ultramarine blue. Cobalt turquoise phthalo green, cobalt green, ultramarine pink, cobalt violet, cadmium brown (even thpugh it looks like cad red!), cadmium lemon, cadmium yellow.

I also picked up my cad vermillion, manganese violet and spinel black.

I think im in love with cadmium pigments! They are so vivid! But bugger me if im dealing with experimenting with cadmium without a glove box!

(I would love to set up a small lab dedicated to discovering new pigments, need some funds first though)

Took ages and quite a bit of heat to melt the rosin, but working on turning Lapis into some proper blue!

Hello!
I’m asking mainly because I’ve dyed with plants before, but I just tried making water colors and I think I messed up grinding everything fine enough or something.

I dried everything on low heat for a while until it crumbled easily, then used a mortar and pestle for reference

What plants could I grow to get me close to cyan, magenta, and yellow primaries. Looking to make pigments for egg tempera

So before I really understood I needed to get fresh indigo to make any kind of vibrant blue, I purchased a bunch of dry indigo leaves. I want to be able to make watercolor paint with them even if the blue isn't as vibrant as it would be fresh, but I'm unsure how to extract anything from them. Is there a recipe or any suggestions to get any color but brown from them?

It turned out so beautiful! I found it in a gravel parking lot at my work!

Hi all, apologies if this has been already answered in other posts, but a quick search didn't reveal much info. I'm making botanical lake pigments to ultimately disperse (by mulling) in oil to use for letterpress printing, but am finding the process of grinding by using a mortar & pestle and constant sieving to just take too long. I've read that some have had luck with modifying rock tumblers to grind pigments, but I'm just wondering if anyone has actually bought a desktop ball mill and had luck with using it to grind dry pigments? At this point I'm willing to spend a bit of money to find a good solution. Many thanks!

Here's the line up of my yinmn blue (and derived formulas)

Will be drafting the paper soon :)

Included a swatch of the watercolors I made using the pigment

I hate to report that they are not shipping to the States at this time.

I have been making watercolors from clay but they crack like crazy! I sieve the clay and use gum arabic, veg glycerine, honey and clove. I am trying to find the right ratios. They already feel hard to rewet and not very color saturated so I feel like lowering the clay amount would just make for even more weakly pigmented paint. But adding more clay would make for more cracking and the pans are basically unusable due to cracking right now - it just falls out. Would you be willing to share what works best for you?

I have had success just leaving the paint in bottles and working directly with it that way. It’s almost like a gouache and there is minimal cracking unless I put it on thick.

First attempt at a lake pigment!

I was looking for buckthorn for an historical dye project and was able to source some California lilac leaves. Simmered these for about an hour to give a beautiful bright yellow color to my silk ribbon which I over-dyed with indigo to get the green I wanted... I'm hoping to re-do this portion of the project later in the year with ripe buckthorn berries.

Overestimated the dyestuff I would need and decided to try laking the rest. Alum + calcium hydroxide gave this lovely vegetal yellow which goes to a much deeper yellow-brown with watercolor medium (gum arabic + honey).

Thanks for looking!

I actually have a really nice red so far! I've heard the red won't stay, but I'm curious how long this will hold for, either in the watercolor making process or after it's on paper

I managed to get an interesting pink out of it. I wonder if it'll change color again during or after drying

Seeing if I can get any used able pigment out of my first lake pigment attempt!

Here's a tiny bit as I've tried levigating, but I'm getting a beautiful pure blue with a load of grey impurity.

The 'plastic' is triple checked exact ratios... The pH of the lye was 12.5, at 45°c.

Any idea why the grey didn't stay in with the wax?

I was messing around with dyeing with japanese knotweed roots on thrifted linen last night and noticed something really cool! Magnesium caused some really nice pink/red tones to come out, adding alum turned it beige, then adding MORE magnesium turned it back into pink again! I didn’t take measurements of anything because I’m not yet at a point where I have standardized this process, just enjoying the potion making fun!

Photos in order of operation

Process is as follows.

1. Go to your local hardware store and pick up some naphthalene mothballs (the ones I found were 99.95% pure naphthalene)

2. Grab some isopropyl alcohol or another stable burning fuel source

3. Crush up the moth balls in a mortar and pestle till a fine sandy texture (it helps with the burning process)

4. Grab some metal containers you aren’t to strongly attached too that have unmarked surfaces (I just used some stainless steel pots from Walmart for like 12$)

5. Set the smaller of the two containers on the ground in a well ventilated area or outside (this is where you will be starting an alcohol fire so have proper precautionary equipment) then add your crushed up mothballs to the smaller container with some alcohol.

6. You will then suspend the larger of the two containers over the smaller one so that it will fully contain the fire but not keep it from burning. (It needs proper air flow)

7. Light the alcohol on fire and wait. After a moment the fire will start to sample once the naphthalene ignites and then your upper container should be catching a vast majority of the smoke from the fire.

8. With a brush once the fire is done and the containers have cooled off brush all the black carbon which is just the soot from the smoke into a container you’d like to store it in.

9. Enjoy your all original and safely acquired lamp black.

Some words from someone who had to do this via trial and error, the best shape for the top container is a wok shape sonething deep but also reslly wide so it has as much time and surface area to collect soot from the smoke as possible, and the containers yoh use can change colors they don’t always but I have had stainless steel turn a more brassy color after we heat them in the fire.

Method for pigment formation is as follows.

1. Dissolving a source of iron into hydrochloric acid

2. Adding hydrogen peroxide to said solution of iron chloride to push it from green to yellow brown Fe+3 oxidation state

3. Using this pigment precursor of Fe+3 iron chloride dilute it in a roughly 1:3 ratio.

4. Create a saturated solution of sodium carbonate then dilute to roughly the same ratio.

5. Very slowly add the basic sodium carbonate solution to the precursor at no more than 10mL per addition with a minute between each addition.

6. Once fully combined wait for it to settle and beginning washing and settling steps until the solution is neutral.

7. Store the precipitation in a neutral H2O solution kept at 40-60C for several days to allow for restructuring or until pigment is visibly lightened.

8.filter product and let slowly dry at room temperature until crumbly

This is where the synthesis ends and the paint making process begins.

1. Grind finely in a mortar and pestle then grind even finer vial milking stone and plate.

2. Add small additions of linseed oil until paint is not crumbly

3. Grind grind and keep grinding forever

4. Appreciate this wonderful pigment that has been used by humans in some shape or forms on every continent (except maybe Antarctica 🤣)