Making My Own Manganese Blue

Still some left!

As manganese blue is such an uncommon pigment for characteristics and rarity, and as I've had such good experience with it thus far,  I searched out and obtained this lovely pigment in dry form to turn into my very own watercolor! I love a good project, and was optimistic about this one :-)

The ingredients

I chose to add clove oil to prevent mold, as I was interested to keeping this paint wet.

I wore a respirator for safety sake, as this pigment is rather poisonous and easily airborne :-)

In the mix

The final product :-)

You know, I'm happy with the final product, it was easy to make and now I have more of the paint I like so much :-)

Palette Box Project

Having appreciated the Palette Addicts thread at WetCanvas for a long time now, and loving a good hands on project, I got it into my head to pickup a cigarette cases to upcycle into a useful travel palette. 

Such an interesting old case! 

In the quick Etsy search that followed I discovered a lovely very well used, antique Park Sherman display case, made of metal, that has 3 shelves and folds up rather nicely.

The closed case, showing the wear of many years.

I plan on cutting some shelving away to make room for a collapsible shot glass for my watercolor water, and adding fillable WC pans and tiny ceramic bowls for mixing on the top shelf.

The cigarette dividers should, when cut down a bit and placed horizontally, hold my travel brushes just fine on the shortened mid or bottom shelf.

As yet elsewise, I'm excited to see what direction this project takes :)

The Park Sherman logo