Chemistry of paint: Where does paint come from? Adaptable for High School or University level. Deliver this short lecture midway through an "Intro to Painting" lesson.

1. What’s inside this paint?
What gives paint its color?

2. If you wanted to make
your own paint, what
would you need?

3. First, an ingredient to give the paint
colour. This is called a pigment.

4. Some pigments start as minerals or
gems, and are ground into powder.
(This is true cobalt blue, which comes from an
expensive gemstone in Africa. 4 oz. of cobalt
powder costs $215 USD, or $250 SGD)

5. Some pigments start as rocks or clays.
(This is burnt sienna, which comes from a
certain soil in Italy. You bake it in a furnace,
hence BURNT sienna, and you grind it up.)

6. Some pigments come from ground-up
plants (or even juices from animals).
(This is sap green, which comes from ripe
buckthorn berries. Sap green is common, cheap,
and has been around for hundreds of years.)

7. Some pigments are made in a laboratory
from chemicals. These are the newest
pigments.
(This is cadmium red, which comes from a
mixture of cadmium sulfide and cadmium
selenium. Scientists have been making this
artificial colour in labs since the 1920s.)

8. These pigments can make oil, acrylic,
or watercolor paints, but they can also
make pastels or colored pencils.

9. Also, these pigments are never
exactly red, blue, or yellow.
Instead, a pigment might be a dull
reddish orange or a greyish
blue-green, or a bright blue-violet.

11. Do you recognize any of the colours here?
If you start with a few, you should be able
to mix the rest.

12. So to make paints, the first
ingredient you need is a pigment.

13. the first ingredient you
need is a pigment
The other ingredient you need is
called a binder, or vehicle.

14. Linseed oil + Pigment = Oil paint

15. Acrylic Binder + Pigment = Acrylic paint

16. Review from last week:
Do you remember the three
differences between oil and acrylic
paints?