Every so often, I need to make a post at my website to introduce myself and share a bit about what I do. This helps keep my website relevant in the ever-important search engines. So hello! I’m an artist who uses paints made from rocks 🙂 I live in Kingston, Arkansas in the middle of the woods in rural Madison county.

Paints Made From Rocks

Yep, you heard that right. If you do a quick search online for that term, what you’ll find are a lot of results that show the art of painting ON rocks. But not much at all about an artist using rocks to make paints. The former is quite common to do, and the latter is gaining a lot of momentum. A renaissance is booming as more and more artists learn about the pigments that can be found in rocks and minerals.

Here’s where you can see my art that I made using paints made from rocks.

Actually, pigments from rocks are still commonly used to make commercial paints. And before paints were available in tubes, it was the main source of pigments for all artists. Different areas of the world have different shades of ochres (some of these are quite famous, like these in France), and minerals and rocks from different places make different colors. I use the ones I can find right here at home in northwest Arkansas.

What About the Variety in Colors?

You might wonder what the colors look like. If you’ve heard of ochres, that’s how the colors I get from rocks look. They’re all earthy. In general, I get about 5 different colors and a lot of shades of those colors because each rock varies a little in how it leans towards brown. Here in the Ozarks, there’s no rock to give me bright colors of any hue. And no blue at all, and no source for a white oil paint.

The red clay makes a very bright orange, and I love using it for instances where bright color is needed or simply desired. For blue, to stick with the earth pigments even if not local, I use lapis lazuli. And for white, I use titanium. Both of those two are available already powdered, so that’s how I buy them.

I Use a Limited Palette

Many artists who make paints from rocks they find, use a mixture of store-bought and handmade paints so that they can have a full palette of color to make the paintings they like. My approach has been the opposite. I’ve tried to use as little as I can of purchased resources when I make my art. For watercolors, I don’t have to buy any other colors or pigments (unless I want blue). With oils, I do buy titanium white pigment powder to make an opaque white paint.

This means that I have to do without most of the bright, clean colors on my palette. Mine is an earthy palette. And sometimes it means I can’t obtain life-like colors. Fortunately, a lot of what I like to paint has a lot of earthy tones. And some of the, like the birds of prey, are actually very close to the pigments I have on my palette.

Some of the Paintings I’ve Made Using Paint Made from Rocks

These are oil paintings. I made the paints by grinding the rocks (I also use soot) and mixing the powders with linseed oil. To get different values for each color, I use titanium white to adjust. You can most of the paintings I’ve done by visiting my portfolio page. The art is arranged by year of completion.

Visit an Artist Who Uses Paints Made from Rocks

Unfortunately, I no longer have a studio away from home. So, if you’d like to see any of my work in person you’ll have to catch me at an event or schedule me to come out and bring the work to you. I’m happy to travel anywhere in NWA with paintings, and there’s no obligation to purchase.

Until I get another studio, I am working from home. I’m open to studio visits if you don’t mind seeing a messy, unfinished house with a long dirt-road drive to reach it.

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Here’s a video of how I test the rocks I think might make good pigments: