I’m sure by now you’ve noticed I’ve been making paint lately, ha. All of my sets of paints are called ‘Soul of the Ozarks’ collections. Each collection is numbered, and starts over in the numbering each year. This post is meant to give you some insight behind the paint-making part of my business. If you’d like to know more about the colors and sources, drop by this other page, too. And if you’re interested in how I actually make the paints, here’s a couple of other pages you might find interesting too:
- About the colors (this one takes you to my Paleo Paints website)
- How to Make the Paint
Locally Made, Local Business, Local Ingredients
This product is Made in Arkansas from almost entirely local ingredients. I do have to import the media base and essential oil of cloves. But all of the color, labor, and the honey used to preserve and condition the paint, comes from right here close to home. If my tiny little operation grows very much, I’ll be able to hire someone from right here at home to help me with the gathering, sorting, and grinding of rocks and mulling of paints.
The Soul of the Ozarks
If rocks are the soul, then paint captures the essence and embodies the soul of a place.
Since all of these colors were gathered from right here at home, this entire collection is called Soul of the Ozarks. There will be other palettes added as I find other shades and sources. Other collections will be created from other places, and those will be given the title to match their place. This way you will always know the source of your colors.
Sustainable
Never toxic ingredients, and I always harvest the colors with respect and gratitude. The rocks and clay I gather are from sources Nature made available without resorting to digging or mining. I basically gather them off the ground while I’m taking my daily walk.
I’m experimenting with a source of water-soluble resin close to home so I won’t have to import the base media.
Introducing …
Get Announcements
Sign up for my mailing list and I’ll let you know when new colors are coming out or when I’m having classes or workshops and field trips to make paint or gather materials. I’ll also be sharing new paintings and product availability to my list from time to time. I try to keep it interesting, so if you have any suggestions or feedback, please do hit ‘reply’ and let me hear it. My feelings don’t get hurt easily 😉
Paints in my Shop
.
Author/Artist Info
________________________________
Madison Woods is a self-taught artist who moved to the Ozarks from south Louisiana in 2005. In 2018 she began experimenting with watercolor painting, using her local pigments. She calls them Paleo Paints, and her artwork features exclusively the lightfast pigments foraged from Madison county, Arkansas. Her inspiration is nature – the beauty, and the inherent cycle of life and death, destruction and regeneration.
Her online portfolio is at www.MadisonWoods.art.
Click here to join her mailing list.
If you would like to help Madison get more easily found by others, leave her a Google review by clicking HERE. Thank you in advance!

I hope it is a sucess
Thanks! I hope it is too. There’s been a lot of interest in it so far, so we’ll see. I have seen similar things offered at Etsy that seem to be doing quite well, too, so hopefully mine can compete for a little of the pie 🙂 It’s not really competition, though, because all of the colors will be unique to the maker, even if they start with the same materials. But as far as I know, at this time there isn’t anyone else making paints from the Ozarks. It’s like another form of art in the long view.