Northern Rivers Shell Watercolor Gift Set

A beautiful collection of four paints by Beam Paints in an abalone shell. This Northern Rivers watercolor set features beautiful blue pigments that swirl throughout the powerful rivers and streams of Canada. Made from plant based pigments and a homemade binder, the vivid colour rewets beautifully and is lightfast. The set includes four hues: Great Ocean, Robins Egg, Prussian Blue, and Sky Blue. The accompanying shell in each set can be used as a palette and carrier. They symbolize a great star that appeared in the sky to guide the Anishinaabe people in their great migrations, prior to European contact. The shell is commonly used to hold a ‘smudge’.  A bit of white sage and other plants burned in the shell and their smoke would dispel negative energy, and carry prayers to the creator.

Each paintstone is approximately  3/4" x 3/4"
Each set of four paints and the accompanying shell, travel brush, six sheets of 4 1/2" x 5" watercolor paper and wrapped in a cloth pouch, ready to go for gifting. 

Beam Paints was started by Anong Beam who grew up harvesting hematite pigments with her parents in the stunning natural landscape of the lacloche mountain range near her home in M'chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island. She learned a love of pigment and color from her parents who are both artists and eventually this early knowledge of indigenous pigments was used to make her new line of paints focusing on sublime color and biodegradable packaging. All the paints and packing is hand made, hand cut and sanded from reclaimed white cedar and birch or wrappers hand printed in shop with plant based inks and waxed with local beeswax. Beam Paints is a plastic free company. 

"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." Anong Beam