Hemp Paint

We know little of the early history of paint and varnish. We would suppose that the history of varnish goes back to the advent of shipbuilding as a sealant on wood ships, somehow copied from pitch or tar of trees, or melted from petrified resins like liquid amber or copal. The chemists of ancient Egypt or China no doubt refined the process of making varnish and colored paints. 

Artists of many cultures have painted with oil paints made of hemp seed oil on canvas (hemp).

The Illustrated History of SHIPS AND BOATS, 1964, describes the galleons of the 1550's: "The superstructure was painted in bright colors laid on in geometrical patterns that gave them a zebra-like or checkerboard effect." The picture on the left, from this book, shows the reconstructed Victory, ship of Lord Nelson, in Portsmouth, England, sporting fresh paint.

During the Congressional hearings on the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, Ralph Loziers of the National Oil Seed Institute, representing paint manufacturers and high quality machine lubrication processors, showed up to disagree with the Act. He testified: "In the past 3 years there have been 193,000,000 pounds of hemp seed imported into this country, or an average of 64,000,000 pounds a year." What is the oil used for, he was asked. "It is a drying oil, and its use is comparable to that of linseed oil or a perilla oil. It has a high iodine principle or strength. It is a rapidly drying oil to use in paints. It is also used in soap and in linoleum.