My Citra Solv Experiments

The day before Thanksgiving I couldn’t bring myself to stay in the kitchen all day, so while the turkey was in the oven I ducked out to the studio to try out my new goodie basket of product samples that the wonderful folks at Citra Solv sent me. I had been notified that they had randomly chosen for their once-a-month facebook giveaway, which had me intrigued. When the package arrived at my door, it included the original Citra Solv concentrate that’s used in all kinds of art making, plus they threw in a couple of old National Geographics so I could try the process.

Citra Solv’s facebook page is great for keeping up with the latest from various artists who are experimenting with the product’s capabilities with image transfers, collage and mixed media. If you’re on facebook you might want to “like” them.

Here is the direct link to a Citra Solv tutorial showing how to make collage papers out of old National Geographic pages. My quick experiments were the only way for me to see what happens when Citra Solv interacts with National Geographic pages.

Here are just ten pages showing my results. My discoveries were that once the ink has dissolved, it can be manipulated in a thousand ways. I especially enjoyed treating the pages like monotypes, laying them face to face mulitple times.

I also loved using the sponge brush that was wet with the solvent to move the colors around. You can see some of the strokes in this picture.

In a way, I loved these pages as works of art in their own right. Here are a couple of individual pages:

And here is one of my collages using pieces of Citra Solv papers.

“Spirits are Everyday Things” – Collage, 8 x 8″ on 14 x 11″ backing

I have shown this collage before, but I think it’s the best example of these effects.