Simple Watercolour Paint
As one of the most popular painting mediums, Watercolours have a myriad of manufacturers and are available in bottles as a liquid colour form, in tubes as a soft concentrated fluid/paste and as a dry form in pans.
In essence, they are all basically pigment bound by gum arabic with more/or lesser amounts of water. Their handling properties vary from brand to brand, some contain honey or glycerin to aid re-wetting, some contain extract from a bovine gall bladder (ox gall) which imparts special flow characteristics, and some add in inert, chalk-like bulking agents to cut down on pigment costs. The exact recipes used by the large brands are trade secrets known to only a few formulators in their ranks. Our vision is to remove the hurdles that stand in the way of artists following in the footsteps of the old masters who made their own paints to their own specifications. The traditional method of grinding and dispersing pigments and binders to make paint, is a time consuming activity and has an initial financial outlay to acquire the specialist tools. We have done the difficult step and finely ground and dispersed the pigments, meaning the expense of a glass slab and muller and the hours of mulling the pigment to disperse into the binder, are no longer an issue and the dispersions can simply be combined with the binder in seconds.
In a small sealable container or if opting for a dry format pan in a small silicone mixing cup add the ProChroma pigment dispersion in roughly the amount of paint you require (5, 10, 15ml etc). To this add the powdered gum arabic powder in small amounts and stir in thoroughly. The powder will initially swell and become sticky but, keep stirring until the liquid becomes smooth again, indicating that the gum has dissolved.
Each pigment dispersion will require a slightly different amount of gum binder to achieve the desired consistency, but what you are looking for is a soft liquid that is not too sticky or stringy. As a rough guideline though, you should get good results if you start with a ratio by volume (rather than weight) of 1 part pigment dispersion to 1.5 parts powdered gum arabic. If you accidentally add in too much gum powder and the consistency becomes too sticky, add a drop of water to bring back the desired feel. As you go, regularly take a tiny bit of paint on the tip of a brush and test the paint on a test piece of watercolour paper with lots of water until you achieve the colour strength and gum level needed. Adding too much gum to the mix will create a shiny paint finish that doesn't flow well. It is therefore better to only add as much gum as is needed to bind the pigment to the paper. Once the pigment does not rub off the paper once dried, you have reached the necessary binding strength and only need to add more gum if you wish to alter the flow or handling properties.
Experiment with glycerin, honey or ox gall to further change how the paint behaves.
Gouache Paint
Gouache fever is taking the world by storm with its, dare I say "easy to use" (though not always easy to master), fast drying, versatile and forgiving nature, coupled with a simple clean up routine, it is no wonder it has seen a huge revival of popularity in recent years.
Early gouache was made for reproduction art (ergo its other common name was poster paint), it was common for fugitive pigments or dyes to be used as the original artworks produced were of little value once they were scanned or photographed. This is no longer the case, and modern artist gouache is made with the same quality pigments as other fine art paints.
This has unfortunately resulted in gouache paints often being some of the most expensive art supplies on a price by gram/ml basis.
Gouache is like watercolour, simply pigment (and in cheaper brands filler) bound by gum arabic. The difference between the two being, gouache is formulated to be opaque whereas watercolour is usually prized for its transparency. To achieve the opacity, titanium white can be used. In some brands, they may also add in matting additives, this is often believed to be chalk , but common chalk is a poor choice of additive and can result in a disturbing drying shift between the wet colour and dry colour. Likewise adding in too much titanium white can result in very milky pastel looking colour ranges, but due to the high tinting strength of our concentrated dispersions, it is usually possible to achieve deep or at least strong mid-value colours using ProChroma pigments, even when using white to add opacity.
One of the frustrations gouache painters face is from thinning out the paint with water, which while extending the expensive paint and making it easier to brush out, comes at the cost of increased transparency. It's now possible to mix up larger batches of paint in a consistency you choose (i.e easy to brush but still opaque and not requiring water to thin) at considerable cost saving compared to the top-tier, off-the-shelf artist gouache.
Mix the ProChroma pigments to the shade you desire first, then stir in some gum arabic powder until, when tested, the dried paint does not rub off the paper. The amount of pigment, gum and water can be adjusted to your own specification either ready to brush on, or thicker like jelly gouache, that can be thinned with water or applied in thicker strokes that leave visible brush marks.