Monday, June 10, 2013

Making paintings from Citrasolv papers

The other day I posted how I made abstract background papers using Citrasolv and National Geographic magazines.

I took some of these papers and mounted them to a substrate. Some are on watercolor paper, some are on masonite boards, some are on canvas. I meant to photograph the pages after I painted them in the same layout as the "before" pictures, but then took the finished ones to the art fair to sell, and so I will have to do my best.

Before picture:

The original is shown in the upper right. I painted the tree trunks and branches back in where they were missing, then painted a strong horizon line and darkened the lower half around the bubbles.

This original is shown in the bottom right. It was pretty blurry with nice color and thought it looked like trees, so I painted the trunks, darkened the edge around the foliage, and added a strong horizon line.(This is in a clear sleeve so there are some reflections from the ripples in the plastic).

Before photo #2:

The original is on the upper left. The woman's image blurred and got a mottled coloring, but was fairly intact. I painted the background around her to cover the text and provide good contrast.

This is on the upper right. It had a strong horizon and I thought it looked like a snow scene so added trees and snow.

This is shown on the lower left. I added a horizon line so it would look like a lake and did a wash over the foreground to look more like grasses.

Before photo #3:

The original is shown in the lower left. The horse was very blurred from the Citrasolv process. I wanted this piece to be cheerful and added a quin violet wash for the background.

Original is on bottom middle. The tall building did not get blurred but the foreground did. I added soft trees in the foreground and added clouds and re-touched the blue sky as well.

I am still working on the others...

My friend Heidi made some Citrasolv papers with me a couple weeks ago and she is working on collaging them on flower shapes cut from wood (still in process in the picture).

I went a little crazy making Citrasolv/Natl Geographic papers a few weeks ago. I think it will take a while to use the 150 plus pages I now have!


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