The basis for all Artemis products is plant colour pigment, derived from flowers, leaves, stalks, roots or resins. Together with wax and other naturally occurring raw materials, they are processed into Artemis plant colours in such a way as to yield pigments with crystalline properties. Crystalline substances shine from within - that is to say, the pigments capture the light and reflect it back from their own inner being.

So the product cannot be a colour which the colouring agent renders opaque, nor can it be entirely transparent as with traditional watercolours; only semitransparency allows the specific light quality of the Artemis plant colours to emerge.

The special way in which the substances are combined lends the colour constancy, light fastness and luminosity. The light forces of the plants are still held in the crystalline base.