How to Make Watercolor Paints Using Mica Powder

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I’ve been admiring beautiful watercolor paint sets on Etsy (that I now know are made from mica powder) for a while now, and they are pricey. The more I studied them, the more fascinated I became. I started wondering what exactly it would take to make my own.

As it turns out, the process of making watercolors is a lot easier than I imagined it could be, and it’s also a lot of fun! Kind of soothing, I think. I’m not going to promise that it’s less expensive than just buying a set on Etsy. In fact, depending on what you already have (or don’t), the upfront cost is likely to be more. BUT having control over the colors and being able to make multiple sets or just more colors makes it not such a bad deal. 

I did a ton of research on homemade watercolors before I got started. I saw a lot of different “recipes” and instructions. There were a lot of similarities in the binder recipes, and I used those to form the recipe that I used. I am by no means an expert, but I have successfully made 40 different colors of paint. I’ll tell you what I used and what worked for me. I’ll tell you what mistakes I made and what I’d do differently next time. I’ll link to the specific products I used. At the time that I bought them, they were the best deals I could find.

Supplies:

• Distilled water
• Gum arabic
• Glycerin
• Sodium benzoate
• Mica powders (color shifting set one and two)
• Watercolor half pans
• Palette knives
• Glass cutting board
• Empty watercolor tin
• Measuring spoons
• Mixing bowl
• Jar (to store binder)
• Saucepan

Optional:

• Strainer
• Glass muller

I want to note here that there are more “natural” ways to make watercolors. You can use honey instead of glycerin; clove oil instead of sodium benzoate. I didn’t want to use honey because I’m afraid of critters getting into my paints, and I decided to use sodium benzoate because I was hoping it would give me a little more time to use my binder. The paints are also vegan this way, so that may be something you want to consider.

I’d also like to note that I wore a mask while I worked. I just used a surgical mask that I had on hand, but I was trying to limit the amount of mica powder that I inhaled. Definitely be careful and take precautions based on what materials you use.

There are also a lot of different options for pigments, but as soon as I read that mica powder would work, I was sold. Not only did I already have quite a collection of mica powder, I’d also been eyeing a set of color-shifting mica. I’ve used all of the mica that I have, and it makes for some gorgeous paints. It is sparkly, though, so if you don’t want your paints to sparkle, I would use something else. I can’t link to the exact set of non-color-shifting mica I used because it doesn’t seem to exist anymore, but I love the 10g bottles because I have plenty left over for other projects.

Watercolors essentially require two parts: pigment and a binder. The binder is made up of different ingredients that you can mix up and store in the fridge. (This helped me a lot because I was making very small batches.) 

I had hoped to mix my binder and store it in the same jar, but I ended up deciding to strain it, so that didn’t work out exactly as planned. In hindsight, I should have just mixed it in a bowl and strained it into a jar.

To mix the paints on, I used a glass cutting board. This is the one I used. I didn’t even think to check whether or not the one I ordered was textured, and it was. It worked great, but I felt like I lost a lot of paint in the little ridges. I would like to order this one to use in the future. It would be much easier to scrape paint off of a smooth surface.

I opted to store my watercolors in half pans, but you can also buy full pans or empty tubes to store yours if you’d prefer. I did buy empty tins for storing the pans. That way I can easily take them on the road. Some of the pans I bought had magnets on the bottom, which keep the pans from moving around in the tins. If you happen to have any empty Altoid containers on hand, you could even use those to store your paints. 

I read conflicting information about using distilled water vs. tap water. I opted for distilled, but I did find tutorials that just called for “water.” So… whatever works for you, I suppose.

Let’s make some watercolors!

The first step is to make the binder. This is not so much about the exact amounts as it is the ratio. Here’s what I used:

The first thing I did was boil a cup of distilled water. I poured the water into a jar, and then I added 1/2 cup of gum arabic. I spent quite a bit of time mixing that in and trying to get rid of any and all lumps. Next, I added 3.5 Tbsp of glycerin. I kept seeing 1/5 cup everywhere, and as it turns out, that’s about 3.5 Tbsp. The last ingredient I added was about 1 tsp sodium benzoate. After mixing and mixing some more, I decided it was still a bit lumpier than I wanted, so I set another jar in the sink with a little colander on top and poured the binder through that. It did indeed catch a few small lumps.

Binder recipe:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup gum arabic
• 3.5 Tbsp glycerin
• 1/2-1 tsp sodium benzoate

Then you have a binder!

I let my binder cool down on the counter for a while, and then I put it in the fridge overnight because I didn’t have time to work with it later that night.

When I pulled out the binder the next day, I set up shop with that, my bag of half pans, two 1/2 tsp measuring spoons, two palette knives, and my glass cutting board. I also had handy a paintbrush, some scrap paper, a sheet of watercolor paper, and a pen—to test the paints and keep track of the colors.

This part is all about experimenting. I started with a ratio of 1:1 between mica and binder. So for each color, I started by putting roughly 1/2 tsp mica powder on the cutting board and adding 1/2 tsp binder to it. Very carefully and trying hard not to send much mica powder flying, I mixed the two parts together. I think for every color I ended up adding at least a little more binder. The consistency I was looking for was something that flowed a little but wasn’t too liquidy. I didn’t get them all exactly the same consistency, but they all work, so I call it a win.

Pretty much everything I read said you should use a glass muller to mix the paints properly, but I was trying to keep my costs down as much as possible and opted not to buy one yet. I may do so in the future, but I had good success using two palette knives. Who knows; maybe the fact that my cutting board was textured actually helped with the mixing process.

Now, here’s where I made a rookie mistake. Apparently, when you’re making watercolors you shouldn’t fill the whole pan at once. Instead, you should fill it in several layers. I can think of a couple of ways to do that without being wasteful. The first would be to mix up a batch of paint and spread it out in thin layers across however many pans it takes. It would take several batches and several days to fill the pans. The second way would be to mix a batch of paint and keep it in an airtight container. Then you could pour out layers, letting them dry in between.

To test whether or not the colors were bound properly, I would take a tiny bit of paint and, using my wet paintbrushs, paint a little bit on a scrap piece of paper (in this case the back of an envelope). Once it dried, if I touched it and my finger stayed clean, I figured it was mixed well enough.

I also painted a little swatch of each color on a piece of watercolor paper and labeled them so I could keep track of them.

I had room on my glass board to make four different colors, so I only had to wash the mica measuring spoon and palette knives in between each color. After four colors I would wash the board as well. That helped me streamline the process. 

Within two days, most (if not all) of my paints had dried in their pans. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would.

I have so much binder left over that I could make a bunch of different watercolor sets. I may just do that and see if I can sell any to help cover the cost of the supplies. A couple of sets, and I may just come out ahead!

Here are all of the colors I’ve made…

Just look at how beautifully these paint! I’m in LOVE! 

I do plenty of crafts where I’ve thought, well that was awesome, and I don’t want to do it again, but I truly enjoy this. I’m excited about the possibilities! I haven’t even tried to create my own colors yet.

I hope you’ll give this a try and make your own watercolors. Happy crafting!