The Colour Maker

I have known about the Colour Makers House in Appleby for a long while, I’ve even been in to have a look round the shop but today, as another Heritage Open Days event, we went to a demonstration there - pigment and paint-making using soil and rocks foraged locally, which is what the Colour-Maker does. 

Highly entertaining and absolutely fascinating. This great guy talked about the different rocks found locally (see first Extra). He demonstrated each of the stages of creating pigments and then making the pigments into paint. Pure alchemy. 

In my photo he is adding Gum Arabic and Honey to pigments to make ‘the best watercolour paint in the world’. Of course he then gave us all paper and brushes so we could try the paint out (see second Extra).


I remembered that I have a box of ochre pigments, bought during one of our many visits to Roussillon, in Provence. We talked about this and he encouraged me to have a go at making them into paint. I might just do that. 


The third Extra is a door at the house with panels showing the different paints made from soil and rocks from around Cumbria.

Use this link if you want to know more.