Citra-Solv and Old National Geographics = ART?

Day 5 at Art and Soul

was a very unique

-scratch that-

was a very aromatic experience!

Last year I took a class w/ Cathy Taylor

and she mentioned a technique she used for creating works with

National Geographic magazines saturated in the natural cleaner Citra-Solv

Once the company learned about the number of people

who were using their product

they created a site dedicated to it

you can check it out here

New Citra-Artist

Cathy has judged a few of their contests

she was also recently featured in

the recent issue of

Cloth-Paper-Scissors

but onto the experience....

Cathy started the day with her usual

Cheerleader like enthusiasm during her demo..

sorry I didn't capture it in a photo...

Basically you sprinkle the solvent on every page

shut the magazine and wait...

we headed outside

so we wouldn't ummm...

as Bubba would say "Inhale" too much...

but it was a gorgeous day

so wonderful to get outside for a bit...

We headed inside and laid them out to dry

and by lunchtime the whole Convention Center

smelled

Squeaky Clean...

at least we pretty much masked smell of the  the Wabi-Sabi-wax class

who totally stunk up their room w/ beeswax...

and here are some of the results

The photos don't necessarily show some of the range of color.

more of the dark shows up in the photos but not in person...

but a lot of people pay money for paper like this!

Here are a few of the pieces I created

I decided to use the actual design that appeared and paint what I "saw" in it

kind of like looking at clouds

we all see something different...

I realize now looking at the photo you can't see some of the subtleties in the image

but basically I imagined a sort of cloaked / camouflaged wood nymph

It would have been nice if I had the original page image

but would have been impossible for me to photograph the whole magazine for before images

However it was a photo of red ants carrying leaves

This image I clearly saw the wings in the angel first

and took it from there

kind of out there for me...

but all the reds and oranges

kind of a guardian angel with a child wrapped in her arms in a post-apocalyptic world?

This cloaked couple (man w/ a bit of long hair on the right)

appeared to me quite easily...

It was a photo of a hayfield....

If you stare at these images long enough you see all sorts of tiny things in them...

I think all these figures seemed ethereal to me

since I was letting my imagination go...

most everyone else saw trees and mountains

a few awesome fairies and mermaids as well.

So what do you think?

This is definitely not what I usually

paint..

but it was fun and different.

It's good to branch out.