Art and Algae: Turning Algae into Art

Algae produce over half of the oxygen in the world that we breathe, but people don’t consider algae much. With my capstone project, I want to highlight the importance of algae and how anybody can physically incorporate algae into their life. I experimented with creative techniques and found a method that works best to turn algae into watercolor paint. I collected it, cleaned and dried it, then grounded it into a powder to mix with gum arabic and water to create algae-based pigments. These colors can be used to create beautiful, biodegradable paintings. By turning algae into art, I hope to connect people to this amazing resource that they may not have considered using before. [A painting portfolio is included as a supplementary file with this page.]