Ironic materiality is at play again. The FTOC pages have had a wash of 1970s rose madder last week on the ‘pink side’ and today a second layer of blue on the ‘blue side’. The first blue wash was a mix of cobalt blue left over from paintmaking.
Today was a wash of Winsor and Newton Blue (red shade), which will not dull the pink prints parts of the blue plates and allow a glimpse of pink.
On the Non-binary Hu-Cow pages, I used a layer of varnish to highlight the layers. This time, I’m going to use micro-crystalline wax. I want to separate the wash layers from the following print process. If I don’t, it will pull off the watercolour layer and not print from the gel plate. I don’t know if the gel plate will print onto the wax layer either, but I’m presuming from experience that it might. The only way I can test this is to do it; I can’t replicate the delicate nature of the old book paper any other way than just doing it. This lot will need to dry thoroughly before I can wax.
The use of wax within paint layers was used by Turner, probably due to time pressures and lack of resources for oil binders. He and his father made the paint; it gave a texture and luminosity to his work. It was, however, a nightmare for restorers as their usual methods melted the painting’s layers. No worries for my future restorers, as these pages will be entombed in thermal composite plastic sheets!
The studio smelled of petrochemical solvent; unlike Turner, my wax is not from bees but an old can of dried-up Renaissance Wax I’d used in my old farmhouse to hand wax the new oak floorboards 20 years ago, I’ve used it here in my current home, on my iron tattoo machine frames and various artworks since so I am getting my money’s worth while using up STUFF…
Renaissance Wax was developed in the late 1950s by Dr A E A Werner in the British Museum Research Laboratory. It is a microcrystalline wax made from crude oil and polyethene waxes; it is not green in any respect but is a perfect accompaniment to the idea of fisting the oil companies. Unlike Turner’s traditional beeswax, Renaissance Wax does not acidify over time, making it the preferred choice for preserving museum artefacts.
Microcrystalline waxes are derived from de-oiling petrolatum during the petroleum refining process, like paraffin wax, but microcrystalline wax composition results in finer crystals, darker, denser, and more elastic texture. It’s used often in cosmetic products, but I wouldn’t use this variety on your face. I wear gloves when applying it, but sometimes, I accidentally get a bit on my nails when removing my gloves, and they are very shiny afterwards. It has a higher melting point than paraffin wax but still softens when it’s on your fingertips; I wear gloves when applying it.
It could be interesting going through the laminator so I will have my fire extinguisher ready!
I am printing the silent duck fist shape in white acrylic on the blue side. White for those not blue or pink rather Agender without gender…
The ghostly silent ducks are contoured by oil pastels lines drawn around the imprinted hands, I have washed over them using a mix of W&N cobalt blue and Schmincke Supergranulation Glacier Green which is a fancy combo of Cobalt Titanate Green and Chrome Tin Pink (Potters Pink)
The contours are symbolic of the oil contour maps used in the oil industry.
I have started to separate the contour lines with Posca pen blue. How will the laminator deal with this? How will we deal with sour crude oil?
The oil is running out and what left is of poor quality, governments are becoming increasingly reluctant to grant new oil licenses due to net zero carbon targets for 2050… though as I type this the SNP has broken off power sharing with the Green Party, what forces are in play here. I am sure political journalists will sniff it all out eventually.
However crap oil needs more refining, which still makes for lots of plastic. Read more about how the oil industry is dealing with the dirty sticky stuff.
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/bb829d8b-0703-4022-80e4-8bd144502c4d/external_content.pdf
Townsend, J. (2019) How Turner painted. National Geographic Books.
Mx.D.P 
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