This post was initially created in April – edited a month later – and then, and then… I’m feeling like I should have been miles away by now, had I continued to work; so I still need to program a mindset to be accepting of this situation of forced headache breaks etc. As well as get back on the horse with my focus keyword perhaps! (actually, sometimes a break isn’t all that bad, many things tend to work in an ebb and flow motion. Can one possibly sync the inside breaks with the outside ones?!)
Tag: paint
Plant watercolours
Heidi told me about making water colours from plant dye, so I just had to give it a go even though I don’t really have the time or energy right now for another project.
I still need to work on getting a more concentrated solution, the day I did this I had to go out, so I couldn’t let it sit on the stove to steam for hours. There’s also a matter of how long it’ll keep, my first jars were too tall for the fridge, then I managed to not have time to test the liquid for days. Then it got cold and rainy and not good for picking flowers… you get the idea.
So I’ve just been doing some washes, layering the solutions to see how dark they would go, adding iron and copper as well as soda ash and vinegar to modify. Nothing happened in fact, it may need to be heated – again, no time. And then I noted several days after, that my swatches had changed colour. So there is a possibility for modification, but a high rate of unpredictability or a steep learning curve in knowing what you’ll get eventually.
I started out with coreopsis and tagetes, meant to do a batch with weld also. But, well. The tagetes turned out very greenish yellow and the coreopsis nearly brown, so I’ll have to do perhaps birch for a warm yellow (or Dyer’s chamomile, which I only have in a dried variety by now)
Then there’s coffee and tea, tea with iron. I’m thinking mainly backgrounds for illustrations, to start off on something not white.
I tried getting direct prints from the flowers by “hammering” them into the paper, but just got brown smudges. The colour is not waterproof after drying, so wetting these papers again for eco printing would probably wash most of it away.
I’ll investigate some more, at some point, for now I hand over the torch in case somebody else has the urge or would like to share their knowledge. I used 10% alum in proportion to weight of the liquid.
Plante-akvarel
Et meget kort og forhastet forsøg på at lave akvarelfarve fra planter. Det fungerer – men er lidt upålideligt mht farveændringer via kobber, syre, base, jern osv, da farverne først skiftede på papiret flere dage efter jeg havde malet det på. (og allerede smidt varianterne ud). Måske det virker bedre at opvarme hver enkelt variant eller lave dem mens det oprindelige bad er varmt.
I virkeligheden havde jeg hverken tid eller ork, skulle i byen den dag jeg kogte blomsterne, så jeg kunne ikke lade dem stå på blusset og dampe mere ind, vejret blev skidt til blomsterplukning og jeg har bare for meget at se til.. Men hvis nogen skulle få lyst og måske endda dele deres erfaringer, så er bolden hermed givet op. Der er brugt 10% alun i forhold til væskens vægt.
Jeg brugte tagetes og skønhedsøje, egentlig ville jeg også prøve vau og birk, men det er det så ikke blevet til endnu.
Golden Open
Yesterday I decided to play with my small test tubes of the new(ish?) Golden Open acrylics. Yes, play 😉 and picking some new to me colours as well, india yellow and sap green, with white and ultramarine. I’ve been feeling that I sometimes want to get away from the very bright carnival colours without going brown and grey, you know?
The Open series are supposed to dry slower than regular acrylic paint, but without the smell of the oil and turpentine. As well as staying wet on the palette even overnight.
And they do take their time drying. But it seems that they get sticky with the brush just as fast as the others, or nearly so, and then just stay that way – forever. In fact one canvas done with medium is still slightly sticky this morning. What I was looking to get was a fairly long blending time on the canvas with no brush tracks. Copious amounts of medium helped a bit, but also worked as a glaze. I did a couple of washes with and one “abstract” background without. Just randonly picking up paint, apply, pick up more and try to blend the two areas.
So I wondered if anyone out there had another or the same experience? I don’t mind the longer waiting time as long as I get the longer working time, but one without the other seems pointless. Or is it the no skinning and palette useability that is the actual deal? The pamphlet says “can be reconstituted for a period of time (an hour) once set, using water, fresh paint or mediums.”
I’m looking for something to replace my W&N Galeria when they run out or get to sluggish and it seems Golden is all the rage these days. I already have a hard time squeezing them out of the bottles compared to the couple of newer tubes I have, and thought perhaps that’s why I was experiencing stickyness. The sample Golden Fluids I have do the same though.
Maybe I’m just working too big a surface. (50×50 cm in this case) Doodling away in one small corner works very well if you have your painting all planned, but not if you’re just going to wave your arms a bit and see what happens. Remember, I’m trying to learn to be intuitive about it. Absolutely almost non-thinking. Sometimes I think you have to visit all the extremes to find your middle ground?
So today I’ll try fewer colours in the first round wave, when it begins to get sticky I’ll go at it with fresh paint and water (I thought I was doing that yesterday, but….) Maybe I use too thin layers. Will have to test a thick coat in one corner. (having only those very small tubes)