it's a family affair

Tomorrow, or rather today, is the last day of the residency. The four artists are scheduled for an exhibition (one day only) and reception from 4-7 pm on the fourth floor of the Administration building. I am showing five of the anthotypes including two of the grass emulsions which turned out very different from each other. I will elaborate in a post later this week, time permitting. In the meantime, here is a tease for the exhibition tomorrow: the rose and grass anthotype next to each other. Looking at all of the anthotypes on the wall, it is a family affair and they all are somnambulists.

Grass Green and a Fugitive Pigment

They  cut the grass on the Emmanuel College campus yesterday so I went into manic mode. Wet grass clippings is chance favoring the prepared studio artist.

Mainly pictures this today. After an initial success, I have been struggling with using grass as a pigment for the Anthotypes. The first one, because of the quality of paper and five coats, worked out well. This was coated days ago before the lawn mower cuttings became available (yesterday). It is just waiting for the subject to arrive in the mail which is the fodder for a future blog entry. The second and third attempts are another story. I will let the captions do the talking. Besides the green, I have a discovery to report. The rose pigment is very sensitive to ambiant light i.e. fugitive! Please see the last picture.

The first attempt at grass which worked out well due to five coats of emulsion and the quality of the paper. Note the two other anthotypes in the upper background.

The Utrecht drawing paper soaks up emulsion and shows streaks. This is actually grass poultice pressed on top of the paper. In the photo above you can see this along with the second attempt.

 

 

Red rose pigment exhibiting signs of pattern fading after two weeks exposure to room lights.

Experiments from the Garden of Roses, Part II

Anthotype science. I like this kind of stuff.

The rose petal extract demonstrates a classic pH indicator color change. I wish I had a pH meter to compare my guesses but for now these estimates will have to do. I noticed that when I washed out anything that had been in contact with crushed red rose petals, it would turn the water blue which would be around pH 7. Last week when I suspected the leftover rose petal extract was oxidizing to a brown, I added a classic food preservative, citric acid, to the fresh rose petal emulsion. It went from a cool red (pink red) to a warm red (crimson). Yesterday evening I again added citric acid to the latest batch of red rose petal emulsion and saw the warm red effect. In washing out one of the beakers I created about 3oo cc of faintly blue water into which I added a pinch of citric acid. It shifted the water to a faint red before it went clear. Now the question is, what was the pH of the pinch of citric acid in water that I created? Probably pH 4-5.

In creating some green Anthotype emulsion from grass, I noticed that adding citric acid created more of a brown green or olive color and possibly contributed to flocculation. For the grass I am probably going to just use distilled water and crushed leaves (blades). As of yesterday, the sheet of paper I have coated has about 5 coats of green applied to it.

Pictures soon. Of immediate concern is tracking down some coffee this morning.