Hi Steemit!!

Today I want to show you one of the emblematic trees of Brazil: the Urucum!

Why is Urucum so special?

Urucum is traditionally used by the Brazilian Indians and Peruvians, as a source of raw material for red dyes, used for the most diverse purposes, among them, protector of the skin against the sun and against stings of insects; there is also the symbolism of thanking the gods for the crops, fishing or health of the people.

In Brazil, powdered urucum tincture is known as colorau and used in cooking to enhance the color of food.

Urucum, is the fruit of the Urucuzeiro or Urucueiro (Bixa orellana), tree of the Bixáceas's familly, native in tropical America, that reaches to height of up to six meters.
It has large bright green leaves and pink flowers with many stamens.

We have this one in our garden for 3 years. It gives us its fruits once a year!

Its fruits are capsules armed by malleable spines, wich turn red when ripe.

Then its open and reveal small seeds arranged in series, from thirty to fifty per fruit, wrapped in aril also red.

On the tree the fruits do not always ripen at the same speed.

This is my first harvest.

So with it I dicided to taste for the first time to make a natural paint:

I have first separated the capsules from the seeds to keep only the seeds. (I used the capsules painted in red to decorate the Christmas tree).

Then I blended the small amount of seeds for a few minutes. Until its turned to a fine powder.

Then I mixed the Urucum powder with 500 ml of white liquid glue and 800 ml of water.

The difficulties I encountered:

• The color was not pronounced enough, so I added a little more bought urucum powder (which I had bought).

• The liquid was not sufficiently homogeneous. I had to blend it until the pigments penetrate well in the glue.

But at the end the result was pretty fine! I liked the color it gave on the paper.

Maybe the next time I would put a little bit less of water to make it less liquid 😉

I had in mind the idea of ​​using it to paint our camel sculpture in mud: Check out my post about it

But I don't know yet if I'll use it outside because the rain may make the paint run after a certain time...
So I already have to do a first test on another surface to see what happens...
You will see in the next post about the camel!! 😁

Thank you a lot for following me through this experience!

UPDATE: Since I do a lot of Do It Yourself posts, I decided to start a new mini series of articles called Lisa's DIY.

With Love,

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