Ingredients
- 3 part dry powdered pigment by volume PW6 — $0.042/mL from Kama
- 2 part watercolour medium
Tools
- A measuring cup
- Stainless steel bowls
- Drill press with dispersion disc
- A three roll mill
- Small 1ml watercolour half-pans
Current procedure — last updated 15. August 2022
- Set up the drill press and dispersion disc and prepare for mixing
- Fill a stainless steel bowl with the full amount of dry pigment
- Then whisk in the watercolour medium
- Mix using the dispersion disc on the drill press
- Allow to sit for a while
- Set the three roll mill to 6mil on the fast rollers and 7mil on the slow rollers
- Run the mixture through the mill at least 8 times until you reach a 10µm grind
- Disperse into small 1ml pans and allow to dry, topping off in layers.
Drapak’s manufacturing notes
17. March 2022 - Making ~2 cup total
1:1 mix — 250 ml of medium ($3.02) and 250 ml ($10.50) of dry titanium white = $13.52/300 ish pans = $0.045/quarter pan
This was so dreamy to mill. I began by putting the 250ml of PW6 into a stainless steel mixing bowl, and then I added 250ml of medium and whisked the two together. I ran the batch through the mill 8 times with a 6mil gap on the fast rollers and a 7mil gap on the slow rollers, and the result was very very creamy. The resulting grind was about 10µm, and was a terrific consistency to dispense into pans. I was able to fill one entire cookie sheet full of quarter pans (1mL) with the resulting mix. The paint seems smooth and opaque.
TODO: Increase the proportion of pigment to reduce stickiness. Perhaps 3:2?
11. Oct 2021 - ½ cup total
Mixing: The pigment mixed fairly well into the medium. It started to wet fairly quickly. I alternated with medium and pigment until done. The result was light grey with a few undissolved chunks.
Milling: I set the roller gaps originally to 20mil each. I had some trouble with the pigment falling through the gap and collecting in the plate underneath. A fair amount of the pigment dried on the rollers as well.
Mixing TODO: medium first, and mix in pigment. Allow to sit for a while to see if it wets better over time. Mixing a larger batch would make a lot of sense.
Milling TODO: try starting the mill off at 15 mil gaps on the slow side, and 10 mil on the fast side. Using a spatula to scrape out the mixed paste helped a lot.