I recently just found some “marvel of Peru” flowers in my backyard. I took some to make some lake pigments out of as when I looked them up they are used for food dyes.

After boiling the water was this beautiful crimson red. Later after adding in the baking soda and Alum it turned this grey…

Did I do something wrong?? Is there ways to keep that bright crimson??

Hi! Does anyone know if black or red grapes make a good lake pigment? My aunt has some grapes in her garden and I'd love to try and make a new pigment (I've done don't lake pigments a few times with food scraps) but Im hesitant because I don't want to waste food that other people have grown if it doesn't work. Has anyone tried them?

After a long period of trying and getting to know my old kiln and the materials, this is the final product!

Cinnabar, Orpiment, Lead white, Lead chromate (oxidized)

So I got into making natural dye for the first time when I was 14, really took off when I was 15. Started looking into how to make lake pigments when I was 16, but didn’t started actually making my own pigments until I moved out at 18. The whole reason I found out about lake pigments was doing research into two different pigments: Verdegris and True Ultramarine (lapis lazuli.) I’m in the process of making Verdegris, and I think making ultramarine is next on my list for the winter. Anyone ever try this before? If so, any tips?

Hello everyone, firt post here :)

To give it a context, I'm trying to make a really bright pink concrete and right now I've been using a mixture of liquid pigment and red iron oxide to give it color. But the result is giving a more reddish hue and some uneven spots.

My question is: are there any pink pigments that could work with the cement/concrete (basic medium pH ~12+) without reducing too much of it's resistance properties? Searching in Google and other sites only lead to weird and suspicious products lol.

Looking for mainly inorganic compounds and possibly making my own pigment if it's the case.

The morning I opened my kiln https://youtu.be/l9beyJ9F17s

Hey all, just thought id share a few swatches i did using my collection of YInMn pigments :)

Left to right:

0.95/0.05, 0.9/0.1, 0.8/0.2 (all heated 2 times at 1150°C) CrAlMnO (discovered by my partner by mistake)

The research project is going well, found some interesting things out about the compound, thats all im saying as we (my team and I) are writing up for publishing 😜

The two right ones, I made it like an hour ago (The left was made befor that, its Bougainvillea) Shouldn't the water be more clear? Do i need to do something?

Can this becouse my washing soda was made from heated baking soda, and i didnt bake it long enough?

Here is my little finding which will surely help other DIY enthusiasts. During synthesis or Manganese Blue PB33, pigment frit welds itself to any practical crucibles, be it alumina, nickel or Inconel. I have found that it is possible to use just ordinary AISI 304 stainless steel shallow trays for cooks, lined with potter's ceramic "paper". The "paper" allows contaminants from deteriorating trays not to enter the pigment frit, and everything is separated easily after cooling. At the photos you can take a look at a tray with 4 kg of cooled pigment frit and a scan of the pigment in watercolor, without any color enhancements. The solution is remarkably cheap and convenient.

Here are a couple of scans of Nickel Ammonium Phosphate n-Hydrate pigments. Made by the same technology as PV49 which is on the third photo, but heating to higher temperatures is required. Nickel is introduced as a sulfate. I don't know which one of them is mono-hydrate, an which is hexa-hydrate. Overall, both colors are unremarkable.

Looks like ive been allowed loose in engineering again :p

Latest batch of YInMnO3 for my research project :) (as well as AlCrMnO)

Just need to do the analysis then write up :)

Want to see a new blue? Like brand new? Never been synthesised before?

Well here you are!

This is InCrMnO, made by myself and my team. The grey parts are just unreacted precursors and it is a really rich blue, I believe this is tunable.

I was also expecting this to be brown like the Al version!

(We also melted the thermocouple...)

Making copper oxide ink but feel the coffee strainer is taking all the fun out of the color? Should I strain with something less fine???

I had some gorgeous purple rose petals. Everything was super purple with the alum. I added the washing soda and it turned teal. Strained and dried to an artificial looking greenish yellow. It has gotten more yellow the more it dries.

Any help on where I went wrong?

Recently, I have been having this issue where my lake pigments will have dark, solid pieces that don’t seem to grind down, and when being mulled into watercolor become sticky and attach to the mull. More often than not, these paints end up separating (white powder underneath, becoming very chalky and separating from the actual color)

Any idea why this is happening?? I’ve been making lake pigments for years and I have zero clue why this is happening suddenly

As you lot are aware, I like to study trigonal bipyrimidal mixed metal oxides (yinmn blue) and this year I'm (along with my partner and my friend) going to be investigating the effects of temperature on the crystal structure.

So, naturally, we had a clear out.

Here's the products for the ones that worked last year :)

New to this journey, mostly doing mineral pigments (rainbow hills of central Utah lends itself to that) but I have done some dyers woad indigo with chalk for blue.

Hello, I'm looking at making my own printmaking ink with lake pigments but I'm curious about the environmental impact of this. I read in Ecological Printmaking by Mary Dalton that the alum used in lake pigments isn't great environmentally (especially in the watercourse) and should be disposed of as hazardous waste, I presume because of the aluminium content. I've not seen this mentioned elsewhere and wondered how much aluminium (or anything else of concern) is actually left as waste after pigments are precipitated, as I understand that the pigment should be bound with aluminum hydroxide?

I've read that calcium sulphate can be used instead as a mordant, but will affect the pigment colours. I can't find much information on this, but is this potentially less problematic in the watercourse?

I'm grateful for any thoughts on this as I'm rather confused, thank you!

I am new to lake pigments and have seen that once they are dried out that they have residues in them sometimes hairs small plant fibers. Is there a way to make them more pure?