This week, in between stacking wood, hauling brush, clearing studio patio land…in between bouts of sweaty mountain womanliness, I MADE ART!!!

‘sperimentin’ kind o’art.

Because I wasn’t allowed to lose myself in the studio. Wasn’t allowed to break out the paints and disappear into the zone where five minutes becomes five hours. Or ten hours. Not with Open Studios Tour coming up in three weeks and all sorts of loose ends to tie up.

But in between nipping down little trees with my bare teeth and wiping sweat from my brow, I dashed into the studio and had my way with Nation Geographic magazines and Citrasolve.

I’d heard you could get some interesting results. Internet arty rumors. They made it sound so easy.

Umm, no…it wasn’t.

Because there’s a lot of conflicting info out there. Like, the magazines must be pre- 1970s.

Well, this is what that looked like. The Citrasolve did nothing to dissolve the ink but my impatience did much to dissolve the paper.

I did some more research. One article said you had to use the non-spray version of Citrasolve. Well, maybe that was my problem. So I went out and bought a bottle of the concentrate. I brushed it on a page from a later National Geographic, maybe mid 80s. This time I tried some direct manipulation. Ugly but progress.

So I kept playing. Moved up to a 2010 edition. Brushed Citrasolve on lots of pages, squeezed them shut and stuck the magazine under a stack of magazines. Then I walked away.

A few hours later I came back and peeled them apart.

Oh oh oh LOVE!!!

Here’s some of what I ended up with.

 

 

 

 

Look at all this yummy goodness!!! Can you stand it??? Handsprings! Backflips!

There is soooooo much potential here. For paintings. For backgrounds. For encaustics. For collage. For digital whatevers. But mostly for inspiration!

Now it’s time to scan them into the computer (these are just snapshots). I’ll let the ideas percolate and figure what to do with them later. I’m already feeling the AHA! moments bubbling up.

So give it a try. I have to say though, it’s a crapshoot. You don’t know what you’re going to get or if you’re going to get anything at all. Because not everything I tried worked, even when using the same technique that worked for these. And to recap that technique you need: a fairly recent National Geographic magazine, Citrasolve cleaner, rubber gloves and good ventilation. Brush the Citrasolve on random pages, close the magazine, squeeze it, rub it, bury it under something heavy and walk away for a few hours.

That’s it. Have fun with it and if you give it a try let us know how it turns out!