Our Origins

In 2009, professional artist, mom, and environmentalist Leah Fanning had a large, one-woman gallery exhibition planned and needed to paint full-time for a year to prepare for it. She also found out she was pregnant with her first child around the same time. So, to protect her baby’s health, she ditched every toxic art supply in her studio, including paints, thinners, and primers. 

But what was the alternative to conventional paints?

Leah drew inspiration from the cave painters through the Renaissance masters and took to nature to find her supplies. “I actually went into the woods and harvested all the pigments myself,” she recalls, smiling. “I would never leave home without a trowel and a bag. If I saw beautiful colors in the strata on the roadside, I would jump out of my car and gather the pigments.”

A hand holding a palette knife and mixing green paint on a glass palette

Leah discovered that using natural pigments and oil created paintings that are even more radiant and archival than conventional paints. And without added fillers, heavy metals, additives and petrochemicals, natural paints have a brilliant luminosity that can’t be found anywhere else. 

After discovering that even mainstream children’s paints (that are labelled as non-toxic) contain harmful toxins including formaldehyde and heavy metals, she had an epiphany.

“It just hit me that I needed to spread the word! No one was talking about the fact that you could create higher quality works of art with absolutely no toxins.”

A year later, Natural Earth Paint was born. 

Unique Talent for Innovation

Where others see obstacles, we see opportunities. 

Natural Earth Paint is proud to be the most innovative eco-business in the art supply field. Over the last 13 years, we’ve made a habit of creating new products that don’t exist anywhere else:

 It started with our kits, which make it possible for oil painters, watercolor painters and children to make art without the worry of exposure to toxic additives and preservatives.

From there, we created the world's first natural, vegan gesso.

We spent 3 years formulating a high quality and natural face paint, which other “non-toxic” face paints can’t even come close to in terms of safety and sustainability.

Eco-Solve was then released -the only 100% natural & plant-based solvent that can thin your paint and clean your brushes. Soon after that we formulated and released the only plant-based and Natural Varnish for paintings and wood.

In 2021, we turned the art world on its head when we released the first ever plant-based acrylic medium.

And in 2023, we finally cracked the mystery to the first ever truly natural and plant-based acrylic paint. 

And we won’t stop there. We have a ton of ideas for the future and we plan to release new products every year. At the same time, we will continue to prioritize sustainability and health over ease of operations or cost of business. 

To learn more about why this mission is so important, visit our Sustainability Page.

We also invite you to read our Core Values, which are the guiding principles of our business.

Awards & Media