Beam Paints are handmade watercolor paints that are plastic free, lightfast pigments from a 100% Indigenous family entrepreneurship. From the Artist: “Beam Paints is the result of a multi-generational love of pigment, paint, colour, and innovation. I was raised by my artist parents, Carl Beam and Ann Beam, and was taught from a young age how to harvest hematite pigment in the LaCloche mountain range near our home in M'Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island. Beam Paints draws on my early educations in Indigenous pigment and expands it to encompass all paint traditions. A focus on high quality pigment content creates sublime artist materials, with plastic free packaging. Lightfast pigments, tree sap, gum arabic, and Manitoulin honey, blend together to create a handmade saturated colour that is a joy to paint with. From thick stripes to fine washes and details, quality is evident in every stroke. Our watercolours are shaped into paintstones, our version of a half-pan, before being wrapped in beeswaxed canvas. Our pans are packaged in slices of cedar and birch offcuts from an Indigenous sustainable lumber operation.” Paint Stones Paintstones are lightfast pigments, tree sap, and gum Arabic. These little jewels are also about our values and support our respect for the earth and being plastic free. They are wrapped in beeswaxed cloth or St Armand handmade paper with paper labels identifying the color name and are our answer to halfpans! From the Creator: "When I make paint I think about my Dad a lot, he taught me when I was really small to identify hematite and look for paintstones. He kept them in his art bag in a little cloth wrapper, and when he needed paint he brought them out and prepared his paint for ceramic bowls, drums, or rocks. I really wanted something of my paint making practice to share the tactile joy of the physicality of paint, and this is it!"
