I have a commission I needed to get working on and finally had to surrender the idea that I could produce 30 wall reliefs and complete the commission at the same time. So, I have abandoned the idea of the wall reliefs and will focus on the commission. My blog posts moving forward will concentrate on explaining my pulp painting process. For this painting of a pond still life I am using over beaten abaca. Abaca is the inner bark fiber of the banana tree and is used to make tea bags due to its wet strength (it will not tear or dissolve in water). Over beaten refers to the amount of beating time in my Hollander Beater-approximately 24 hours for the fiber to be considered over beaten. The benefits of using over beaten abaca is the pulp will be extremely strong, lightweight and will absorb the pigment I add for colorant. I use pure pigments-cobalt, manganese, titanium-as pigmenting agents. I explain more about my painting process in my next posts.
Pond Still Life, January 16, 2015.
