What is our van Gogh paint? All paint consists of three parts:
The Vehicle - as it's called...that means the stuff that makes up most of the paint - in our case - it's water! Most paints today use water as the vehicle because it doesn't have any nasty toxins like paint made with oil or chemical solvents.
The Pigment - that's the stuff that gives almost everything a color. Pigment comes in a dry powdered form. It is mined from the earth in the form of clay or mineral or even plants. Some pigments are manmade, those are called synthetic. The pigments can then be added to water or glycol or other liquids to turn them into a pour-able, easy to work with color. We use dry powdered pigments that we get from France, Italy and Germany for our handmade Beeswax Finish, and we use liquid pigments to create gorgeous heavily pigmented colors for our paint.
The Binder - Without the binder, all you have is colored water! Beautiful colored water, but not very useful because once the water evaporates, you would be left with dry powder on your furniture that would just wipe off. So, binder is the stuff that makes it all stick together, and stick onto the furniture. We use Fossil (chalk) as the binder in our paint. We also use a little bit of adhesive to make sure that the paint will adhere to most surfaces. The Fossil (chalk) is what makes our paint look velvety, matte and smooth. It's a beautiful finish that is hard to duplicate any other way.
But this is not new. Fossil (chalk) paint has been around for hundreds, even thousands of years. Remember Tom Sawyer and the whitewash fence? Fossil paint! Cave art? Fossil paint! Frescos in the Sistine Chapel? Fossil Paint! All of these refer to Fossil (chalk) paint or some version of Fossil (chalk) paint. Using lime and pigment and magnesium (chalk) to create beauty is not a new invention. So what we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a revival of an ancient art form! But with all of the modern convenience of being able to run down to your favorite decor store and buy a quart or two ready- made!