Tuesday, May 3, 2011

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
Cathy has judged a few of their contests
she was also recently featured in
the recent issue of
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.

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