Monday, February 6, 2012

Buried in salt



I'm super-psyched with how this salt and ink technique worked out. I've been playing around with some techniques of making endpapers for an upcoming competition book, but I think I may save these and cut them up and put them in weird, tiny frames, because I'd be happy getting to look at it more often than if it were the first page of a book. Is that heretical? That if you think a piece of paper is lovely and enchanting and you want to hang out with it a bit, that it would be better suited to be not in a book? I am suddenly feeling guilty!

This technique produces an effect that really looks a lot weirder and more microbial and organic than the pictures indicate. I did these using watercolor, though I think it can be done successfully with inks or diluted acrylic paints as well. I pre-treated the paper using gelatin and then after it had dried, brushed the surface with an even coating of the watercolor. Then sprinkle salt, about a half tsp. per page. After five minutes, it starts to look magical, and once it's dried, you just sweep the salt off. Ta da! Love it.