Leah Fanning
Natural Earth Paint Leah Fanning, a professional oil painter and watercolorist, founded the eco-friendly art supplies company, "Natural Earth Paint" in 2011. Her mission is to educate and empower artists to make their own art supplies with natural and non-toxic materials to create archival and lightfast paint.
About this speaker
Leah Fanning lives in Ashland, Oregon with her son, Django. She grew up in New Orleans to writer parents and trained to become a professional ballet dancer throughout her childhood. After high school, she danced professionally for 9 years before going to art school (Maryland Institute College of Art) for painting and illustration. After college, Leah worked as a full time artist doing commissioned portraits, murals and abstract work for galleries. In 2010, when she became pregnant with her first child and realizing she would need to paint throughout her pregnancy, Leah removed all toxic supplies from her studio immediately. She scoured the internet for truly natural and non-toxic art supplies that were also professional quality, archival, and radiant. After finding nothing, she took the matter into her own hands. She dove into extensive research on ancient paint making recipes, found out-of-print books on harvesting pigments, studied Renaissance techniques and conducted a long period of experimentation and testing. She spent the next two years hand-crafting her personal paints from natural earth pigments that she collected in the Oregon woods around her.
When her baby turned one she learned that almost all conventional “non-toxic” children’s art supplies and face paints are in fact filled with many toxic preservatives, carcinogens, petroleum-based dyes and heavy metals. Her mission was now clear - to create very high quality, vibrant art supplies that are truly non-toxic, natural and sustainably made for professional artists and children and everyone in between. In 2011 she launched “Natural Earth Paint” and they now have over 40 products and worldwide distribution. Natural Earth Paint is dedicated to walking their talk, donating to environmental organizations and non-profits monthly, using all eco-friendly packaging, powering their facility with solar and producing quality products that don’t cause harm to our bodies or the Earth.
See Full Watercolor / Gouache Recipe HERE ...
https://naturalearthpaint.com/blogs/blog/recipe-professional-grade-natural-watercolors?_pos=7&_sid=d64b834fb&_ss=r
