I made Paint like ancient people...

I love how he's surprised that wet dirt has the consistency of mud

Don't forget, pigments from the past were refined over many generations and you've only dabbled. The fact that you were able to paint anything afterwards shows you were far more successful than you appeared to feel. The vibrant colours you showed from ancient cave paintings were using many years of experience; considering the amazing things I've seen you do on this channel, I'm confident that you could do this as well as you had hoped with just a few more dabbles

Some pointers for pigments: 1. if you want to get them as fine as possible, there is no getting around ball-milling the powders. After you crush them as much as you can with a hammer, load them in a rock tumbler with steel balls and let it run for hours up to a few days, and you'll get very fine powders. Sometimes it goes faster if you add a little moisture, i.e. use damp powder to load the mill. 2. a much finer black is lamp black. Basically soot that you collect by placing a sheet of metal, glass etc above the flame of a wax candle or oil lamp. The very fine particles of carbon collect on the plate and can be scraped off periodically. This was used in antiquity too. 3. Pigments from beets, red cabbage etc. are anthocyanins. The color is sensitive to pH. For instance, red beet pignent is red only in acidic environments. In alkaline conditions the color changes drastically (for instance by adding a little sodium carbonate or hydroxide). You can get blues and greens this way. The downside is that they are really not lightfast and will fade rapidly when exposed to light, both in the red and in the blue/green form. 4. There were synthetic pigments used even in antiquity. Especially blues, because natural blue pigments were so scarce. Look up "Egyptian blue" for instance, the wikipedia article is quite good on the subject.

11:38 Fun fact: the reason why his blue color ended up less vibrant and grainy is because lapis lazuli is a metamorphic rock, which means that it’s compose of other other rocks (lazurite, calcite and pyrite). To get a better color one can get better quality lapis lazuli with less calcite and pyrite or just use lazurite, which is what gives lapis lazuli it’s color and also it’s much easy to pulverize because it’s much “softer” (lazurite being generally 5 on mohs scale, while lapis lazuli is generally 5.5).

next, jazza tries Kintsugi (golden repair japanese process) to repair the broken morter and the rest of broken things in the studio 🤣

Fun fact, colored dyes like Royal Purple had particular smells to prove their authenticity. Basically it wasn't Royal Purple if it didn't smell like dead fish, which strangely made it more valuable. 8:06

As an archaeologist and an art historian in school, I really love this video! I’d love to see you do more! Or consult a historian to try to refine your process.

I actually really loved the small history bits you gave us, I would love to see more like this from you in the future wherever possible!

For a better black, you can make "lamp black" You just hold something like a plate over a sooty flame, like a big smoky candle flame and the soot sticks to the plate. The soot is already a fine powder, so its ready to go, and the powder is super fine. In the past I tried to make ink using crushed charcoal and it was unusably terrible, so I looked into how it was actually done, and the answer is soot!

I'd love to see a part 2 where you get in touch with an expert in historical paint making. Learn all you can, and give this another go after being taught how to get good paint consistency from natural materials in historically accurate (non-factory refinery) ways.

It's genuinely one of the best feelings checking out Jazza's channel after YEARS of not browsing it and seeing how he still pushes out fun and creative content whilst still remaining as genuine, encouraging and positive as he's always been! I believe he's on the top best yt artists, knowing that his content is aimed at a fairly young audience (while still somehow remaining fun for any age really, which is so impressive to me) the fact that he encourages creativity and self-expression with such a healthy mindset is so nice to me. I remember watching his content way back when I was in middle school and wanted to be more serious at art so I kind of took his videos as inspiration! And despite his art style not being quite my cup of tea I find that the genuinity and great quality of his videos are really what makes me so fond of them

I just bought a book called maybe titled “the secret lives of color” from a gift shop and I’ve been reading it. It explores every pigment and the history and uses. It’s absolutely fascinating! I’m only in the white section rn but it’s fastinating how she talks about how obsessed people have been with finding a “pure” white and how a lot of whites are just very light colors

That final piece was quite impressive even without knowing the efforts that went into making the pigments! Knowing the production process made it so much better! Definitely something we take for granted!

Lapis is notorious for the amount of hours needed to refine the rocks into pigment

I'm an organic/medicinal chemist, and it never ceased to amaze me what amazing colours some of the compounds I synthesised created. Many hues of purple, blue, I even got some red and yellow (and, while purifying it with a silica column, it formed the colours of the German flag).

I dabbled with natural organic pigments with dyeing organic clothes. You can also change the colour of pigments by using bicarbonate soda or vinegar, changing the ph level will get different colours like blue, green and purple, etc. Blue is a good one especially if you don’t have an indigo plant or you don’t have a local crystal shop or if you despise to go in one. If you grow vibrant red roses, you’ll get a pretty magenta colour. ‼️I also like to say when grinding crystals to dust wear a respirator because breathing in the dust can be toxic.‼️

PLEASE come back to this in a few years and do a video on how each of the pigments lasted over time!

The book "Colour" by Victoria Finlay is an fantastic exploration of how colours were created historically. Well worth reading.

That painting at the end is absolutely gorgeous! I love the minimalist/monochromatic look you ended up with. The textures of the grainy paints add a lot of visual intrigue. It just looks so natural, reminiscent of woods and rawhide. I'd buy it.

I immediately have concerns when crushing gemstones, as the dust that can be carried on the air and toxic if ingested. When you buy crushed ones there's usually a warning on them. That's why shop bought are tumbled and polished. Also Lapis lazuli is a kind of sodalite, but it includes pyrite - the gold flecks (dangerous when heated) - and calcite - white and hard to separate. It's hard to refine it beyond sand, as sand is tiny rocks. My instinct would be a chemical reaction to get blue before gemstones, but only cus I like chemistry.