Organic Journal
I made a start on my Organic Journal today. For details of this exciting book, please see this post.
A collection of collage papers. On the right, one of my music sheets painted with coffee. In the centre, a scratch paper with marks created by cleaning off my paintbrush – this has been in my stash forever! In the end, I didn’t use it on this page. On the left, an odd page from my stash (also ancient history) which was a freebie from a magazine. The paper quality isn’t great but I like the colour for this, and the all-over textured pattern.
I began by tearing the music sheet into random shapes.
I stuck them down using PVA.
Adding some Walnut Stain Distress Spray Stain around the edges of the pieces to darken them. Spritzed with a little water.
Some of the brown collage paper added, after I’d ripped that up into smaller pieces. I added some more of the Walnut Stain ink.
I added lots of spatters with the tube from the Walnut Stain bottle, and then stuck down some pieces of scrim with soft matte gel medium.
More of the Walnut stain added along the top edge and spritzed with water, allowing it to drip down.
Detail of the scrim with drips. Along the top of the picture you can see the swirly pattern of the brown collage paper.
Detail of the top right hand corner of the page. For some reason the drips didn’t work here but the ink just sank into the paper – perhaps I missed a bit when I first coated it with clear gesso. I like the effect, though – it looks almost burnt.
I was concerned about adding further wet media to this page and losing the definition of the drips and spatters, so I coated the whole thing with a layer of Distress Micro Glaze. Hmmm. That stuff resists water! What to do? I spent ages searching online for a solution and couldn’t find one. I sat down to watch one of my favourite YouTubers, Keren Tamir, who was doing a delightful page in a little art journal, using napkins, and she was adding some more white gesso in places, and it was turning grey because it was activating the black ink underneath. She rubbed on some Distress Micro Glaze and applied the gesso over the top, and it went on like a dream. She was then able to add more water-based media. The answer to my question! I left a comment to thank her, and asked if the same technique would work with gel medium. She replied almost immediately to say that because it didn’t have any grittiness to it, it might be resisted by the Micro Glaze, and thought that clear gesso would be a better solution. This is the next thing I am going to try when I have another session in the studio.
An exciting download
While having my breakfast this morning, I watched a very interesting video by Froyle on YouTube, making collage papers by melting the ink on National Geographic magazine pages using Citrasolve. I had heard of this before but not given it much thought, and I thought I’d see what it was all about. I was amazed at the incredible effects this combination produced. There must be something special about the ink NatGeo uses for their printing because apparently this technique only works with their magazines, and with this particular cleaning product/degreaser.
Citrasolve is apparently not that easy to obtain outside the USA. I thought I would investigate further, and also try and get hold of some old NatGeo magazines (I don’t go out much and haven’t been shopping physically for ages so I’d have to rely on my hubby to find some for me!) – when at the end of the video, Froyle said that she had made digital versions of six of the pages she had just demo’ed on the video, and they were available as a free download from her blog! I immediately downloaded them, and later, when I got up in the studio, I printed them out.
Cool, or what? Now I’ve got these, perhaps I won’t actually need to go to the trouble of creating my own pages from scratch – it sounds a pretty messy and smelly business although it does sound a huge amount of fun! – there’s plenty of potential in these pages alone. Maybe one day it would be fun to try the technique, but it’s another new thing to get involved in and at the moment I’ve already got a ton of stuff I want to do, with the materials I’ve got. Anyway, a big thank you to Froyle for her generosity in sharing these gorgeous papers.
Vitamix news
You might remember that over 2 months ago, I reported to Vitamix that my blender jug was leaking. They promised to send me a new one within 5-10 working days. I still have not received it. I have been in correspondence with them and they told me to contact the UK distributor, which I did, and had no response, not even an acknowledgement. I contacted the US people again and they said that the jugs were currently unavailable, and that the UK distributor didn’t have any in stock, with no date set for delivery – probably just another example of the horrendous supply chain problems the USA is experiencing at present. They kindly offered to supply me with the bowl and cup kit free of charge, but I informed them that I already own this accessory. I was grateful that they were trying to sweeten the bitter pill a bit, though! So – for the foreseeable future, I shall have to continue with my inferior blender and hope that the Vitamix jug will make an appearance sooner rather than later!
