Natural Dyes in Paints

For thousands of years, people have used natural dyes—primarily to colour fabrics or decorate pottery. Some of these dyes also found their way into painting, especially since mineral pigments like ochres, siennas, umbers, and blacks (mostly based on iron oxides) tended to lack vibrancy, while pigments made from semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli, malachite, or carnelian were prohibitively expensive.

Natural dyes offer rich, intense colours with a unique chroma and often exceptional transparency—qualities especially prized in watercolour painting. The main drawback, however, is their typically poor lightfastness. That said, consistent testing on the longevity of natural dyes in paint is limited, and results often vary, as different batches can perform differently.

For those who are curious and enjoy hands-on experimentation, I’ve created a selection of paints using pure natural dyes. As I discover more sources, I’ll continue to expand the range of available colours.

Madder root was historically the most significant natural red dye, prized for its ability to produce richly saturated and relatively lightfast shades of scarlet and crimson. But madder is a surprisingly complex root—it also contains yellow, purple, orange, and brown pigments. For centuries, dyers across Europe and Asia experimented with various techniques to isolate and extract a pure, vibrant red from this multifaceted plant. Our new colours from ENL watercolour line feature Madder Brown (will be available in tubes only) and Madder Orange (2 and 3.2 ml pans) transparent pigments.

Indigo is a natural blue pigment extracted from plants like the Indigofera tinctoria. Indigo’s history spans millennia, with evidence of its use dating back 6,000 years to Peru. The colour varies from deep blue to black-blue. ENL Watercolours cover all these versions, made with natural indigo (2 ml and 3.2 ml pans).

Algae chlorophyll. Chlorophylls are the famous photosynthetic greenish pigments found in algae, plants, and cyanobacteria that belong to a major class of tetrapyrroles. Our new Chlorophyll green colour is now part of ENL line (2 ml and 3.2 ml pans).

Cumin provides vibrant yellow, which replaces Indian yellow, so famous for its transparency. Extracted from a plant, the colour is vegan and can be successfully used in watercolours. While we don’t have it in our line yet, it’s coming.

Cochineal is another widely used dye, which offers a wide range of chroma from magenta pink and purple to deep red. Cochineal is an insect living on cacti and other plants in Africa. This colour is not in our line yet.

Walnut black pigment is a natural dye derived from the hulls of black walnuts, which are rich in the staining compound juglone. The colour is non-staining and very soft in chroma, which makes in very useful in watercolour painting. ENL Watercolours have this in stock.

Some other dyes are derived from mollusks to get royal purple colour, or different bark to get brown. We can also use berries, red cabbage, beetroots, onion shells and many other sources. However, most of them do not work for paint and can be used solely for dying paper or fabric.