New year, New project
To be totally honest, the start of 2022 was underwhelming. I had two persistent colds back to back from the beginning of December - following my first flu jab and third Covid jab.
While not quite ready to head back to my studio durimg that 6 weeks, my thoughts were on two things.
Finish off the large painting (Rhythms in stillness III), and start with small collages to search for a new direction. I have previous used collage in this way and it was enjoyable and productive.
The relationship between my artistic activities and environment. Painting about environment and using non-eco-friendly materials is contradictory.
i started with the first one. Because, obviously it’s an easier task of the two.
Collage using a domestic iron was something I’d wanted to try for some time. The basic idea is to coat various papers with gloss acrylic medium and dry before cutting and putting them together on a substrate. And then use the heat of the iron to bond the papers to the substrate. And it works - I was able to test how various tissue papers absorb the colours and how transparent they look when layered. The preparation of tissues was time consuming but it was compensated by the ease and speed of paper-layering and adhesion.
However, there is a big downside to this method. It is not eco-friendly. It requires a lot of acrylic medium, which is polymer-based and essentially plastic.
Clockwise fom top right : A box of pigments, Potassium Aluminium Sulphate, Fish glue, CMC (Carboxymethyl cellulose), Conjack gum powder, Tapioca glue and Nikawa (Japanese gelatin glue).
So, I started investigating various types of glue. Initially my focus was on finding the most user and eco-friendly glue for collage. And my first attempt with starch (tapioca) glue was successful. It tends to make papers wrinkled but by quickly drying with iron helped a lot.
But while learning about all sorts of glue, I realised that most of the glues I was reading about act as binders for pigments. That meant I had actually started tackling the issue No.2!
Having aquired several potential binders for pigments, I am getting ready for a series of experiments - which will probably occupy my time for the next couple of months.