Paint Making Tools of the Trade

When I first started experimenting with handmade watercolors, I didn’t have any special tools. I had some ideas, a little bit of information, and a whole lot of curiosity. Along the way I discovered these things that have become my paint making tools of the trade.

And then when I moved onto making oil paints, I found nothing changed except the binder (oil) and the containers to hold it (tubes). Everything else is the same. With oil paints, though, it takes a lot more pigment to make a tube of paint than it does to make a watercolor pan.

Making Do

Some of the tools are pricey, and if you went out and bought everything at once, it could add up to quite a hefty tab.

Thankfully, you don’t need it all, and you can make do with a bare minimum.

Here’s the post that marked my first time making art with my fresh idea for making my own paints.

These are the things I’d suggest as minimal:

• spatulas
• mulling plate
• pans
• small jars
• dust masks – VERY important!
• gum Arabic

A note about the mulling plate. When you first get it, the surface will be smooth. That won’t do for mulling paint. So you’ll need to run several trial batches on it with a gritty pigment to etch the surface enough to be able to actually do any good with your mulling. If you don’t want to waste valuable pigment, use coarse rubbing compound to get it started.

Leveling Up

After you’ve made some paint and tried out the process, you’ll know whether or not you like the paints enough to keep using them. That’s when I’d suggest getting a tool like the muller. There are also much more expensive mulling plates, or boards. I am still using my inexpensive 12″ x 14″ tempered glass cutting plate from Walmart, but wouldn’t turn down a large slab of marble, lol.

Update 6/2021: Our local marble and granite shop has a scrap pile, and they let people take scraps for free. My ‘scrap’ is a nice 16″ x 29″ slab of white marble! It works fantastic as a mulling board, but it has to stay in place on the table. Very heavy. This is now my # 1 paint making tool out of everything I’ve ever bought. I can also use the large muller I’d accidentally bought when I thought ‘bigger was better’. And it really is, now that I have a big enough mulling board to use it on.

My Favorite Paint Making Tools (So Far)

Some of these items are only applicable if you intend to start with foraged rocks or bought mineral specimens to make paint. Those are marked with an asterisk.

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Note: You can often find mullers used or less expensive on EBay.

Here’s a downloadable pdf list of the supplies I use with affiliate and non-affiliate links to each item:

Future Paint Making Tools

There are a couple of items I’d like to acquire in the future. A larger rock tumbler/rock grinder and a roller mill. I’d need to start making much larger quantities of paints (and accompanying sales) to make those practical buys!

Update 06/2021: My husband bought me a prospector’s rock crusher – I call it my Phenomenal Rock Crushing Machine. It is awesome, but not a small investment. Read more about it here. I still would like to have the roller mill, but it’ll be a while yet before that one manifests.

Online Paint-Making Course

Beginning January 2026, I’m offering a weekly lesson on making handmade paint from rocks. Videos upload every Wednesday and we’ll followup for Q & A or coffee chat the Sunday afterwards.

There are two subscription levels:

• $10/mo to follow along at will. You’ll need to order your own supplies (a list is uploaded already)

• $200/yr and I’ll send you everything you need plus a box of rocks to get started.

You can start the classes anytime and all weekly zoom calls will also be available to replay. I’ll post the next lessons every week on Wednesdays and host a zoom on Sundays. The Zoom and discussions among members will continue indefinitely, but once we’ve gone through all of the paint-making process, the video uploads and schedule for uploading may change to less often.

Here’s where you can find the online courses:

https://www.skool.com/make-handmade-paint-from-rocks-9687

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