Natural watercolor from red onion

In these times of staying home or circuit breaker as we said in Singapore, we take the time to study a lot of things and to live each moment by taking our time. We have new habits. The one we took with my Hubby is to make meals on weekends so as not to bother us during the week and ask ourselves the question every night: “What are we eating this evening”. Especially since the question ALSO comes at noon! In short, we cooked, a lot…

And during these Sunday cooking workshops, I cut vegetables and especially onions. When I was going to make a Ratatouille two weeks ago, I only had red onions on hand. I peeled, cut, cried and looked at my hands colored in red.

And I took the time to look at my hands and I said to myself, “We could paint with red onion.” So no sooner said than done, I took the peelings back, I put them in a small saucepan with a little water. I don’t really remember how much, I admit I acted on impulse. Here are my results.

First extract

I will not hide from you that it smelled of boiled onion in the apartment …

Instructions

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I put the equivalent of peelings of two onions (they were medium) in about 150 ml of water and I left to boil for about twenty minutes. Then, I cut the cooking and left macerated for one hour.

Coloring

After allowing this mixture to cool and filter it, I tested on a watercolor paper. The resulting color is a light beige. I tried to overlay the layers like we would do with a watercolor. Here is the result of the first juice.

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As you can see, when I put color on the papier, the color is very light. Upon drying, a beautiful beige / light khaki is obtained.

I find them superb but launched into the Apprentice Chemist experience (yes my Hubby gave me this nickname), I did not think of keeping this first extract … because, yes, I went on and made a second extract!

The second extract

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Rather, it is more a reduction of the first extract than a new one. I took the first test again and put it back in the pan. I reduced the amount of liquid to about 80%. It was a beautiful garnet.

Here is the test with three overlapped layers (reduced red onion on the left).

In the end, I left the juice a little in a corner for 3 days and I redid a test: it is that you see on the right of the photo above (c-OR macerated).

Preservation

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The last question I had was preservation. I thought to myself that leaving it outside is not necessarily a good idea. Between the humid heat of the Singaporean climate and the mosquitoes that swarm as soon as there is a drop of water, I really did not want to try to leave it like that.

Regarding the resistance to light, I left my paper in front of my office windows for about 10 days and the color did not seem to be altered.

So, I put my new paint in a small container which I then frozen. I will bring it out when the time comes to use it.

Have you ever tested vegetable paints (or dyes)? If yes, what do you advise me to test?

Stay home, stay safe and take care,

Coco