DIY Make your own natural paint

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If you’ve been following me on Instagram, then you already know that we’re homeschooling for the first time this year and are a part of a small co-op. The six of us moms take turns teaching the kids on a 6-week rotation. A few weeks ago, I was gearing up for my teaching week. I decided I wanted to take a little break from my usual subjects of social studies and science and dedicate the week to a little bit of art history. This book is great for teaching kids about different artists and famous pantings and I went through several of them before introducing the idea that we can make paint ourselves out of many things we find in nature. I made several different kinds of natural paint and had the kids mix up one on their own too.

This project was so much fun and the kids loved it! It was really neat to see how unique each painting turned out. One friend even used Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting as an inspiration.

A lot of people have been asking about how I made the natural paints and you can find all the details below. I stored mine in canning jars, because they were the perfect size. These paints really end up to be more like watercolors than thicker paint. You can paint on any kind of paper, but watercolor paper will really make the paints look amazing. The kids used their paint brushes that traditionally come with watercolor sets, but I have these that are great if you want a variety of sizes.

I only made seven natural paints, but there are so many possibilities out there. You can also try mixing two paints together to make other colors (and probably makes for a great lesson on the color wheel.

How to make your own DIY natural paint

Spinach and rose petal paint

For the spinach and rose petals, I tore the leaves/petals a little bit and stuffed them in separate jars, making them as full as I possibly could. Then I added boiling water to fill the jars along with a pinch of salt and a dash of apple cider vinegar. You’ll want to make sure you get as many air bubbles out as possible, so feel free to press the leaves down with a spoon and add more water, if necessary. Then, I covered the jars and left them on the counter for 24-48 hours, gently shaking them occasionally. When I was ready to make my paint, I emptied the contents into a blender and blended as well as possible before pouring through a strainers to remove all of the plant material.

These paints were probably the thinnest of the bunch (because they had much more water added than the others), so I added a little bit of flour to each paint to thicken it up slightly. Just to warn you, the flour and paint will separate as it sits, so you’ll need to stir occasionally. The spinach paint became a really light green, but the kids were happily surprised to see that the rose petal paint turned a beautiful purple color. You can repeat this method with other types of flower petals to see what other colors you can make.

Paint from berries

Making natural paint from berries is probably the more obvious choice as the berry juice produces plenty of liquid for your paint. The raspberries and blackberries were easiest – I simply mashed them in a strainer until I got as much berry juice out of them as possible. I then added just a bit of white vinegar. The blackberry paint was thick enough, but I did add some flour to the raspberry paint (which dries a cool pinkish-blue color).

I tried making paint with the blueberries the same way, but couldn’t get much color when I mashed and strained the berries. My second batch was much better – this time, I blended a container of berries in my blender before straining it. It was a lot thicker than all the other paints, so for this one, I added a lot of water to thin it out a little. You’ll probably also get some blueberry skin bits in your paint too, but I feel like this just added to the novelty of DIY natural paint.

Avocado paint

Natural paint from avocados is probably my favorite. It’s this beautiful brown/blush color. I wasn’t originally planning on making avocado paint, but my grocery delivery person gave me three bags of avocados instead of three single avocados. So therefore, avocado paint! For this one, I cleaned several avocado skins and pits. You’ll want to make sure you get all the avocado flesh off and I found the easiest way to do this was so scrape them with my fingernails under running water.

Once my skins and pit were clean, I put them into a large pot and filled it with water to cover all the avocados. Then, I simmered the mixture for 2-4 hours. The more avocados you use and the longer you simmer them for, the darker your color will be. You might also need to strain the liquid before using, but my avocados were pretty well washed and I didn’t need to.

Natural paint with powders

Making natural paint with a powder is the one I let the kids do by themselves. It was really easy for everyone to do it individually and they had a lot of fun seeing that they could make paint with something they probably had in their pantry already. I chose to use turmeric, but you can use any ground spice or powder you like. (Mustard, curry powder, cinnamon and paprika are also great options). For this one, you’ll want to do equal parts flour and powder and then add water until it’s the consistency you want. In our experiment, we did 1/4 tsp. each of ground turmeric and flour and 2 tsp. water.

If you decide to make your own natural paint, I’d love to hear about it! Tag me on Instagram so I can see your art projects!