Playing with Texture on Black

Spent today in the studio.

Mudflats Fall

I wanted to create a black surface coated with my pumice texture for my pastels. My first idea was to use permanent ink on my surface, then coat it with the texture. I used Rapidiograph ink on one side of a large piece of paper. On the other half, I used Higgins ink. I expected these to be permanent, but once I started applying my texture mix, some inks came up especially on the Rapidiograph side.

While I let that dry, I remembered I had some black gesso, so coated a paper with that which I later coated with the texture mix. Then decided to just add some pumice directly to the black gesso and painted that on another paper. While I had the supplies out, I coated a white paper with clear gesso (which has a sandy texture on its own), and another piece with my mixture. I am trying to develop a recipe for a perfect mix for my work.

Here I shown all the pieces with some pastel marks to be able to see the result of the different texture mixes.

Since I was experimenting, I decided to use the worse piece to do a quick painting (the Rapidiograph side). This looks like a marsh, but it is actually the river at the Galena Mud Flats last fall when the river was way down. I really didn't end up with the black showing much, as I had to work really hard with those places where the ink lifted. It appears that using the piece with the black gesso with added pumice will be the best choice for the next painting.

Process shots of the painting at the beginning of the post follow below.

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