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The Craft Train

Crafty ideas for kids and parents

You are here: Home / Crafts and Activities / Art ideas / Making Ochre Paint from Rocks

Making Ochre Paint from Rocks

April 21, 2014 By Kate 9 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no cost to you.

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Last week we had some peaceful family R&R time away, taking advantage of the Easter break. We really wanted to go to the beach, but if you don’t get in quick in the holiday period all the nice, affordable accommodation gets snapped up by everybody else and there’s not much left to choose from. We left the booking too late, so instead of a beach holiday we decided to go inland, to the serene Kanimbla valley in the Blue Mountains close to Blackheath.

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We were delighted with our choice, our accommodation was definitely “away from it all”, and we spent plenty of time going on walks down the country dirt road taking in the scenery.


ochre-painting87 Miss R, age 5, had been rubbing rocks together in the playground at school with some friends, making a chalky powder. On one of our walks she showed me how she was making it and seemed very fascinated by the process. She knew it was called “ochre” and told me that it had sprinkled with rain while they were making it at school and turned into paint. She could not stop talking about it for at least 20 minutes. We decided to collect a few more rocks and add water with our brushes once we got back to the cabin and try painting with it on paper.

Sandstone is common all over Australia, you need not go to the Kanimbla valley to collect some. In fact, after researching a bit after we arrived home, I’ve discovered that ochre paint was made and used by many early civilisations and native people all over the world, including the Australian Aboriginal people. We did not do any research before hand for this activity and did not follow any traditional method for creating our paint, it was just a simple, experimental exercise that we did on the spur of the moment one afternoon.


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To make the paint:
Rub two pieces of sandstone together until you get a decent amount of coloured dust (ochre). Then, using a paintbrush, add water and continue adding small amounts of water directly to the rock until the powder has turned into a paste. The thicker the paste, the more intense the colour and the thicker the paint will be.

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ochre-painting-16 The girls were happy that their ochre paint worked, and each painted a picture with it. The consistency for us was similar to watercolour paints.


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Have you tried this activity at home, or do you remember drawing or painting with rocks as a kid?

For tons more art ideas for kids visit our Art Ideas Pinterest board. For more detailed information about ochre paint see here.

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Drawing with wet chalk
Scoop and pour soup mix messy play

Comments

  1. 1

    Lisa says

    May 2, 2014 at 5:39 pm

    That’s so cool, I didn’t know you could do this! And I didn’t know that’s what the word ochre referred to. I have learnt something!

    Reply
  2. 2

    Edna says

    April 9, 2018 at 1:10 am

    Loved the experience!
    Thank you for sharing!
    I’m from Joinville, Santa Catarina-Brazil

    Reply
    • 3

      Kate says

      April 9, 2018 at 1:45 am

      Glad you guys tried it!

      Reply
  3. 4

    Karen says

    October 16, 2020 at 12:25 am

    OMG!!!
    Thanks for sharing this my kids loved this activity….THEY HAD SO MUCH FUN!!
    -Karen

    Reply
    • 5

      Kate says

      October 16, 2020 at 5:28 am

      I’m glad! My kids were obsessed with this for a long time

      Reply
  4. 6

    Bubba says

    May 8, 2022 at 12:27 pm

    We did this to great success and painted a T-shirt. Is there a way to preserve the painting and wash the shirt?

    Reply
    • 7

      Kate says

      May 10, 2022 at 9:54 am

      I’ve never tried that. I’m not sure, sorry.

      Reply
  5. 8

    Phee says

    July 31, 2022 at 9:29 pm

    Never did this, but we did use broken off pieces of a neighbor’s slate “stepping stones” to write on the larger ones. Thinking about, I’m surprised no one reprimanded us for damaging their property… We were very young, though and that particular neighbor was pretty mellow. I guess since we weren’t doing any real damage,it was okay.

    Reply
    • 9

      Kate says

      August 4, 2022 at 7:52 am

      Sounds like a very chilled-out neighbour, haha

      Reply

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