My First Full-Fledged Pulp Painting

I have seen these beautiful pulp paintings online, and wanted to give it a try.  These artists create complex paintings– not with acrylics or oils– but with blended paper pulp applied with various tools, including fingertips.  It’s so time-consuming, but can look incredible!

Here are some examples….

Wendy Cain– http://www.wendycain.ca/

Meg Black– http://www.megblack.com

Chery Cratty– http://cherycratty.com/

Amazing, right?  So my idea was to do a composition of skipping rocks.  I associate that with fond childhood memories, and thought it would fit in my body of thesis work nicely if it worked out.

First I made the base sheet by squirting different colored pulp into the mold & deckle with a turkey baster.  I was going for the water reflections of the autumn trees and sky.

Then I sat down and started applying little bits of pulp at a time to create the layered ripples.

I was unsure what to think about it.  I felt it didn’t look “watery” enough, so I squirted a thin film of white pulp across the whole thing.

After it dried, it didn’t read as realistically as I hoped.  I doubt a stranger to the piece would look at it and know what it was.  But I’m fond of the abstraction.  The “splash” of water didn’t read well at all.  I tried gluing a pop-up piece of white and blue paper “spraying” off the page, but that looked even more ridiculous.  In a manner of defeat, I tore the top portion off.  But check out those colored layers!  I love that effect!

I may do more to it later.  I’m really unsure at this point.  I’ll be thinking of a new idea to give this method another shot.  Hmmm…..