SOEWN EARTH

The Earth Reliant Artist



Trace Willans All Natural Mixed Media







Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Xanth and Gesso Experiments

I am going to try and explain what the heck I did
I will admit I had to do a couple of new pieces 
to help me remember
I big reminder to make better notes
(or any notes at all)
The commonality between these pieces
is that they all begin as dipped or painted with 
Xanthorrhoea Resin (Xanth)
and then after they dried were
painted with tradtional gesso

I am working with plants dissolved in methylated spirits
which is a type of denatured alcohol


the idea here is to pull the Xanth 
through to the front
which I did by accident the first time
These have been dipped/soaked in 
methylated spirit (meths)
on the left is cotton fabric 
on the right a book page


both cloth in puffball and meths
left just a dip
right a 10 minute soak


these are both paper
and have had a shape painted on the back
with the Xanth
then into meths with a little Xanth 
contaminating it

on cloth

here I have painted on 
a shape with a mix
of skim milk powder
titanium dioxide pigment
and water

here it is after drawing into it with a Pitt Pen
and then dipping 
the bottom half in Puffballs
and the top in Bloodroot
I did give the white areas a bit of a wipe



a white line after dipping

soaked in meths
dried
drawn with a brush pen 
then painted with white and wiped

old pieces done
with some technique like above
but no notes taken so 
I am not entirely sure
I think I need to do more

these two were drawn with
a thicker Xanth and Puffball mix
before dipping causing them to bleed

working back into pieces with pencil
and a white gel pen

drawing with thicker puffball 
after dipping

If you have any questions
or even just to let me know what you think
and if you are interested in more
please leave a comment

x te

4 comments:

Velma Bolyard said...

I really like seeing the differences and your experiments. Yesterday you showed a piece using Sharpie, and as a hater of the things, I struggle (of course you know all my reservations about them). I loved the sumi ink...and i would love to see more ochres and other cloors...do greens ever appear? more of your textures motivate me to experiment...good work.

Trace Willans said...

I too am not a fan of using sharpies in my work but I was in a frenzy of experiments at the time and was trying everything. I too struggle to get certain effects and to retain my sense of integrity of materials. But then that is what experimenting is about. The struggle to find what works for you. Greens may appear, you will have to wait and see. I am going through my boxes of experiments and loading up what I find/excavate.Some in the spirit of sharing some to figure out how I did what I did. But mostly so it is all documented for my later reference.

Chyfey said...

Im fascinated with this experiment your doing at the mo, loving the textured affect your getting ing the backgrounds

Trace Willans said...

Thanks, the texture is largely to do with the fact that the gesso cracks on the fabric an effect I love so much that some times I scrunch the fabric to make it crack even more.I have two big boxes of experiments to go through so more posts are on the way. xte