Home manufacture of oil paint

Making Your Own Oil Paint: A Studio Guide

Materials needed: Pigment, Drying Oil (Linseed Oil, Walnut Oil, Poppy Oil or Safflower Oil), etched glass muller, etched glass sheet or unpolished marble slab, palette knife, empty collapsible tubes or jars.

Making your own oil paint is an intimate studio practice. Hand-made paint’s qualities are highly differentiated from commercially manufactured paint. It gives you control over the colour’s intensity, body and drying properties. The process allows for an understanding of the way pigments and binders interact to create a coloured paste (paint) that benefits the artist in application.

Step 1: Understanding Oil Index (Critical Pigment Volume Concentration)

Every pigment has its own ‘oil index’: the ratio of oil to pigment needed to make a workable paste. This varies dramatically, a broad list of pigment to oil ratio is at the bottom of this page.
The guiding rule: use as little oil as possible. Too much oil reduces colour intensity and can cause yellowing or wrinkling of the paint surface.

Step 2: Making the Basic Paste

Take a generous handful of pigment and make a well in the centre.
Pour in about a tablespoon of drying oil.
Using a palette knife, mix the oil and pigment into a paste. Work from the edges of the well inward. Once mixed, if the paste is too fluid, add more pigment. If too stiff, add extra oil.
Pastes made with inorganic pigments will become looser once milled.
Pastes made with organic pigments will become stiffer once milled.
Adjust paste consistency according to the pigments you are milling.

Step 3: Milling the Paint

Place a teaspoon quantity of paste on your glass or marble slab.
Stand comfortably, holding the muller firmly, apply steady pressure and move it in a gentle figure-of-eight pattern.
Periodically scrape the paste off the edges of the muller and back onto its face to ensure even milling.
Continue until the paste becomes smooth and glossy. Properly ground paint shows no grains and feels perfectly uniform.
The paintmaking process is basically one of fully and evenly dispersing pigments in a binder.
Pigment particles are separated from each other and coated in the binder to make a stable paint.

Step 4: Storing the Paint

Once fully ground, scrape the paint off the slab with a palette knife and transfer to collapsible tubes or jars. Seal tightly to protect from air.

Step 5: Choosing Your Oil

Linseed or Walnut Oil: The traditional choice. Dries in 2–3 days to a strong, flexible film. Ideal for most pigments.
Poppy or Safflower Oil: Pale, slower-drying, perfect for whites and blues where linseed oil’s yellowing may be observable.

Step 6: Optional Additives

Driers: Can accelerate drying for slow pigments like carbon blacks. Use sparingly. Overuse can darken or embrittle the paint. Cobalt driers are surface driers, Calcium and Zirconium driers are through film driers. A balanced incorporation is important to encourage even drying.
Important: Always disperse driers in the oil before mixing with pigment.
Stabilisers: Although there are high functioning stabilisers (alumina stearate, et al), these are not normally available or easy to use for home paint manufacture. With a long pedigree in oil paint making, beeswax is a favoured material to prevent separation of pigment and oil during storage. It can be incorporated in one of two ways:
1. Melt the beeswax in warmed drying oil. You will need to heat the oil in a double boiler to beeswax’ melting point of 63 degrees Celsius and allow to cool before milling. Do not use direct heat as this can easily lead to the oil burning and, in worst case scenarios, boiling, causing serious health and safety issues. A concentration of 2% beeswax to oil (by weight) should be sufficient for pigment/oil stability.
2. Add Langridge Wax Varnish (a beeswax and Low Toxic Solvent formulation) which mixes cold and easily into the oil. A 3-4% addition (by weight) should be sufficient for stability. The vast majority of the solvent component in the varnish will evaporate out of the paint during milling.
Note: Organic pigments, if well milled in the drying oil do not generally need a stabilising agent.

Step 7: Final Notes

Making your own paint is both technical and rewarding. Each batch reflects your understanding of materials and your creative intention. The process; the mixing, milling, testing, is part of the painting itself. With each carefully prepared colour, you not only craft paint, you craft your experience of painting.

List of oil-index for artist’s pigments