Frida Kahlo’s DIY Paint Recipe

How to emulate artistic genius via a home-cooked emulsion.

Mexican painter and reconstructionist Frida Kahlo, true to her penchant for native crafts and her methodically inquisitive mind, was intensely interested in artists’ guidelines — a meta-genre of art that holds equal fascination today. From The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait (public library), which also gave us her passionate hand-written love letters to Diego Rivera and her poignant meditation on how we are all connected in our pain, comes Kahlo’s recipe for a paint medium using damar gum — a resin harvested from trees native to the Pacific — to which pigment would be added to produce the final paint product:

FOR THE OLD CONCEALER FISITA*. Distemper together 4 equal parts of egg yolks raw linseed oil

egg yolk = raw linseed oil = compound of damar gum blended in turpentine = water

damar gum dissolved in turpentine and distilled water. with disinfectant take = concentrated aldehyde alcohol. ½ gram. to a liter of water.

crushed damar inside of lemon [suspended in] turpentine for 8 to 10 days.

remove all the white from the yolk.

1. Make an emulsion of the ingredients
2. Grind the colors into the emulsion
3. If a glossy texture is desired, increase the amount of damar, up to two parts.
4. If an overall matte finish is desired increase the water up to three parts

* Diego Rivera’s nickname for Kahlo

Complement this with Hans Ulrich Obrist’s compendium of 20 years of famous artists’ irreverent instructionals and the ever-delightful Artists’ & Writers’ Cookbook.

The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait remains beautiful and fascinating in its entirety — a rare glimpse of one of modern history’s most outwardly celebrated inner worlds.

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Woodworking for Mere Mortals: 5 DIY Wooden Gadgets

What Zimbabwean pianos have to do with vintage maze games and tortillas.

In today’s multitasking, digitally driven creative landscape, there’s something to be said for the joy of unitasking and hands-on, tactile work the output of which is something charmingly analog and tangible. Enter Woodworking for Mere Mortals, our new favorite creative craftsmanship fix — a portal for woodworking projects, video tutorials, tips and resources for de-appifying your leisure and impressing friends with remarkably memorable gifts. Several dozen woodworking videos teach you how to make anything from salad tongs to musical instruments, complete with downloadable templates and narrated with delightful quirk by Northern California woodmaker Steve Ramsey. Here are 5 of our favorites.

RATCHET RATTLE

Who needs a vuvuzela when you can have a ratchet rattle? Show the other team who’s boss at the next sporting event you attend or institute an office-wide intercom alternative with this really, really, really loud DIY noisemaker.

THUMB PIANO

Sure, you could just download the latest music-making iPad app. Or, you could make yourself a Zimbambwean mbira dza vadzimu thumb piano. (And then actually learn to play it as wonderfully as this guy does.)

CLOWN TOOTHPICK HOLDER

The dear old toothpick may be on the verge of slipping into cultural obscurity, but we find it an ingenious incarnation of design minimalism — one you’d appreciate even more with a clown toothpick holder …especially if you happen to have contracted our recently developed cinnamon toothpick addiction.

TORTILLA PRESS

Down with stereotypes — now you can be a foodie and a lumberjack, thanks to this DIY tortilla press. This particular project is a wonderful manifestation of the fruitful convergence of new media and traditional craft — after Steve posted the original video, he got feedback from viewers pointing out a functionality problem that resulted in really, really fat tortillas. Consequently, he’s been toying with the idea of a prototype for removable inserts that allow for multi-thickness tortillas.

VINTAGE LABYRINTH GAME

For another wonderful anitdote to the appification of leisure, make yourself — or a device-dependent friend — a retro marble maze. Download the PDF template here. (For a slightly more modern DIY gaming diversion, the connect 4 project is also worth a look.)

For more on the art and craft of woodworking, we highly recommend Old Ways of Working Wood: The Techniques and Tools of a Time Honored Craft — the definitive blueprint to wood types, tools and techniques, adorned with more than 200 beautiful illustrations.

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Customization Gone Wild

70% fabulous, respecting your inseam, how to add a 29th bone to your foot, and why a bear is missing an “e” but has plenty of nuts.

MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY

In this I-me-mine age, customization is already the expected norm. But what happens when it all runs rampant with made-to-order stuff offering OCD-worthy precision? Freud would sure have a field day with the anal-retentive nature of today’s consumerism, and who are we to stand in Freud’s way? Welcome to the Customization Gone Wild issue.

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Since we last featured Freddy&Ma, the design-your-own-handbag getup (named after founder siblings Anthony and Amy Pigliacampo’s childhood partners-in-crime nicknames) has branched out into more cool design-your-own stuff: plates and pillows, to be exact.

The concept is still all about rebelling against the mass-marketed fashions of today and takes a simple approach: to design your own handbag, you get to pick the bag style (tote, pouch, bowler, hobo, clutch and more), the leather trimmings (black, white, tan, brown, maroon) and one of the thousands of patterns (retro, geometric abstract, minimalist, flashy, you name it).

Then they make it for you.

Prices are based on the “canvas” you pick and range from $65 for the wallet-like metro clutch to $295 for the bowler. Or, if you’re feeling lazy and generous at the same time, just pick one of their Carry for a Cause Bags — 30% of your bag money goes towards Art Start or Crate Now, and 70% goes towards making you feel like a good person who just happens to be fabulous.

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Back in the day, you went to the tailor to get your custom-fitted suit, made from a fabric of your liking and with those buttons you inherited from your grandmother. Today, you are the tailor.

At least at MakeYourOwnJeans.com, where you get to do just that: make your own jeans. You simply submit your precise measurements and pick a denim wash. Then, these guys (who we’re pretty sure are Santa’s little helpers moonlighting those other 51 weeks of the year) stitch your unique pair together and enzyme-wash it so it’s all pre-shrunken and even-colored. The rest is between you and FedEx guy.

We dig the concept not only because the big O gave it a nod-off, and not merely because non-cookie-cutter style makes us feel special, but also because we believe everyone’s inseam is a very, very special place and should only be clad in something very, very special.

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Fact: there are 28 bones in each of your feet. Another fact: feet are ugly, especially the really bony ones. But guess what: now, you can have 29 bones and killer foot style.

We’re taking about Skins Footwear, the tech- meets-design hybrid that features a two-part shoe structure consisting of an orthopedic “bone” core and an outer collapsible “skin.” The idea is you get yourself a perfectly fitting, super comfortable bone and then pick a number of skins so you can mix up the look and keep the comfort.

These guys launched less than a year ago, and they’ve already been featured in The New York Times. (Which is almost as good a nod-off by Oprah.) Not bad for a skin-and-bones concept.

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We’re not quite sure if this next über-customizer is the result of dyslexia or pure genius, but YouBar is one “e” short of the Build-a-Bear concept: it’s a fresh-baked, handmade nutrition bar that you build yourself by picking the exact ingredients and even naming your concoction.

And you do it all online.

Here’s how it works: you choose one or two nut butter “bases,” up to 3 different protein sources, some nuts and seeds to add, throw in your choice of dried fruits and berries, add the sweetener you prefer (they even have Stevia!), stir in your favorite seasonings or a bit of chocolate, and add some grains and cereals if you’re so inclined. You can even infuse it all with a shot of vitamins, greens and/or fiber.

Many of the ingredients come in organic version and you can manipulate the proportions of all your choosings within a category (say, 1/3 soy protein + 2/3 whey protein) as well as the levels (not too sweet, extra nuts, etc.) It even calculates the bar’s nutritional value for you — talk about full control.

Then you give your Frankenfood a name and get 12 of your very own lovable, edible monsters for $40 plus shipping.

We, needless to say, absolutely love the concept — it indulges both our health-nutness and our control-freakness. And to think people settle for PowerBars.

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