When I first started painting mandalas, I used the paint I had been painting with my whole life. I was used to working with medium to heavy body acrylics and I didn't think there would be much difference between what I had been used to painting and what I was starting to paint.

 

Quickly I found that the consistency was much too thick to get nice smooth brush strokes and swooshes in this new style. My paint making journey kind of accidentally started there.

 

Rather than go out and buy all new paints I learned how to change the consistency of the ones I had and that led to me custom mixing batches of this new paint consistency so I wouldn't have to do it every time. In the beginning I wasn't saving time, but I was saving money.  I kept doing that until I ran out of my old paints.

I found a few paint brands that were a great consistency straight out of the bottle and started using those, but after some time I wanted to try and use my knowledge to make some cool custom colour shift shades.

 

One day I bought some mica pigments and just played around with adding that to things like pouring medium, or gesso. I had figured out how to change the consistency of paint but not how to make it from scratch... So began my true paint making journey.

 

I did a deep dive into ingredients, mixtures, powders, recipes, anything I could get my hands on about paint making.  After months of research, I made my first paint. The consistency was good, the opacity was good, but within an hour or two of it sitting unused the pigment would settle to the bottom and all my other ingredients would separate. Not good.

 

I went back to the drawing board over and over and tried so many recipes and ratios until I found the perfect  consistency for mandala painting, the perfect opacity for brush strokes, the perfect stability for shelf life. 

 

Now of course I'm not saying my paint formula is perfect for everyone,  it has its niche, but I am saying that in my humble opinion I've created an absolutely beautiful paint formula. Its dreamy, creamy, and so nice to use.

 

Having the ability to make any colour I want whenever I want without having to go to the store and buy it genuinely saves me time and money.  I know as well as any other artist how expensive art is as a hobby or a career path, and I want to give other artists the freedom and ability to save their precious time and money. 

 

I can be so much more creative with my art with custom paint shades. Don't get me wrong I still love my DecoArt Americana, but being able to make custom colours  even as an accent to a palette has taken my art to the next level and I want to share that feeling with my fellow artists.