More Methocel Images and Info

Hi from freezing Downeast Maine.  Don't know what happened to Spring, but this is definitely not summer!

In the course of reading and using the methocel, Rosalita and I have been educating ourselves about chemistry.  One of the things we learned is:  never use flavored, er, scented, ammonia.  Apparently, this makes a huge difference in the surface tension of the methocel and the ability of the paints to float.  We did use water softener to compensate for my hard water, but the Lemon Ammonia was a mistake.  

Here are the images I promised:

Purple Setacolor was sinking fast, so it was quickly swirled and no other colors were used on this piece.

Primarily Tsukineko inks, with a bit of Setacolor.  The Peony Purple ink floated beautifully, despite the poor quality of our methocel base.  Here again, not many colors were added as they started sinking.  The swirling was done with a single wooden skewer.  The action of making the swirls is a wonderful, Zen-like activity.  :-)

I was curious as to just how well the alum (which is a drying agent) kept the paints and inks adhered to the fabric.  This is actually a small sample using untreated PFD fabric.  It's easy to see that the purple ink ran when the fabric was pulled.

This lively piece is mostly Tsukineko ink with Setacolor Platinum for the silvery circles.  Here again, the metallic did not adhere to the fabric (drat), leaving a grey rather than silver image.  The yellow was laid down after the purple, squishing the purple into the thinner jagged images.  Then Gold and Platinum were dropped in, with Mint Green dropped into the small gold spots.  Skewers dipped in Purple drew the tadpole shapes.

I call this one "Wild Tangerine Having a Hectic Day".  lol  Tsukineko inks are used.  Orange and yellow worked well.  The green was some Setacolor, with tiny blue and purple areas being squished by the warmer colors laid in later.  All were swirled with the wooden skewer, then more drops of color were added.

We fell in love with Gold!  And Peony Purple!  This piece came out the best of all the methocel fabrics we did. 

Needless to say, there are many variables that came into play during our marbling session.  We felt free to use any of the paints we had on hand.  We thinned with both the Versatex Dispersant and with Synthrapol (more on this when we use carrageenan).  It was a lot of fun, though somewhat frustrating because of the effects the lemon ammonia had on the surface of the methocel.  

Tomorrow is marbling with carrageenan!  woohoo!  Look for the results on Wednesday!