Make Pastel Paints
You do not have to purchase your pastels to create art projects, which can get expensive, when you can make them yourself in whatever colors you choose. Pastels can be made in a variety of diverse ways with different ingredients. The following steps will show you make good quality pastels that you can use for your art projects.
Instructions
1. Dissolve the gum arabic powder or gum tragacanth, which is the binder for the pastel paints, in distilled water in a bowl. These binders can be purchased at many crafts or hobby stores or online. Dissolve the binder with one part binder to twenty parts of distilled water.
2. Add a mold inhibitor to the binder if you desire.
3. Mix the pigment in the color of your choice and the chalk or kaolin/China clay in a separate bowl or container. The chalk or kaolin/China clay is the filler and can also be purchased at crafts or hobby stores or online. Mix two parts filler to one part pigment.
4. Add the binder mixture slowly to the filler and pigment mixture stirring as you go. When both of these mixtures have been thoroughly combined, it should have the consistency of dough.
5. Roll out the dough into thick, long rolls. Spread out some newspaper on a flat surface.
6. Lay out the rolls of dough on the newspaper. Slice the rolls into pieces that are about two inches long.
7. Let the pieces dry for about 24 hours at room temperature. Use your new pastels to create your art projects once the pastels are completely dry.
