Rose of Jericho or DIY?

[leucothea]

I'm thinking about buying some Rose of Jericho Ceasin-bound lime wash in an attractive Bloomsbury Yellow.

Casein Bound Limewash | Traditional Paint | Rose of Jericho

A permeable limewash paint for decorating lime plaster, render, and porous building materials. Casein improves adhesion in this external grade limewash.

roseofjericho.co.uk

I might still do that, but it is pretty pricy and I imagine that making it myself would be a lot cheaper... This colour just looks like yellow ochre, which is a pretty inexpensive pigment.

Cass Art Artists' Dry Pigment 210g / 250ml Yellow Ochre

View the Cass Art Artists' Dry Pigment 210g / 250ml Yellow Ochre here. Available at Cass Art. Buy Online Today

www.cassart.co.uk

Is something that's easy enough to do yourself?

 

[Flyfisher]

I've not added colour to my limewash as the house is plain white, which makes things easier, but from what I've read it's easy enough.

The only warning is to be sure to make sufficient for the whole job because making a second batch the exact same colour can be quite difficult, apparently.

 

[paulc]

I've mixed my own lime washes & coloured plasters several times.
Not used casein, but have added linseed oil (up to ~10% by volume) to aid adhesion and give a little bit of waterproofing. Powdered pigments can be a bit of a problem. If you don't get every last bit in to suspension, you end up with "colour bombs". Using a muller or ball mill to produce a pigment slurry is one way to avoid the problem - I've switched to using acrylic artists paints such as Golden or Windsor & Newton.

 

[leucothea]

Thanks for the thoughts! I may do some experiments.

Using paints is a nice idea, though I'd guess that watercolours might be better (without the acrylic).

 

[paulc]

Acrylics are watercolour, and to be honest, the small amount of acrylic binder doesn't do any harm. Or you could try traditional oil based artist paints - Some of them use a linseed oil as the main binder.

 

[leucothea]

Tried a sample and it doesn’t have enough punch for what I want! I will buy some pigments and see how close I can get to this.

 

[a twig]

Didn’t @JoceAndChris have some success in achieving a similar finish or is my memory playing tricks on me?

 

[LadyArowana]

Didn’t @JoceAndChris have some success in achieving a similar finish or is my memory playing tricks on me?

Nigel Watts used a copperas? I think. Found one of the posts, I think there may be finished pictures in another topic too https://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/threads/ave-copperas.12654/#post-170957

 

[eon]

Hi there,
I work with traditional artists paints all day long, so I might be able to offer some ideas worth taking into consideration.

Instead of powdered pigment, which can be tricky to combine thoroughly, you could try tubes of gouache paint instead. This is much more opaque than watercolour, traditionally it uses gum arabic or honey as a binding agent.
All good art shops will have gouache in stock. Sennelier, Holbien and Schminke are all reliable brands. However, avoid their student offerings, as these usually contain less pigment and more filler.

Unfortunately all yellow hues have a very low tinting strength. So you will need quite a lot if combining with lime wash in large quantities to get a vibrant result.
With the image you've referenced above, to get that level of intensity I could easily see you using 5-10 60ml tubes per litre. Perhaps even more. It might in the long run be cheaper to buy the Rose of Jericho depending on the quantity you need.

Lastly I would make sure that whichever pigment you decide to go with make sure it has exceptional lightfastness. Not all brands adhere to the same lightfastness standards and as such it can be tricky to determine differences, thankfully lots of folks make tests and post their findings online.