More Acrylic Skins – A Starting Idea

fiber paste with digital ground and gold paint acrylic skins

My wife, Mary, had a very pleasant dream about swimming with Sea Turtles so I wanted to make a piece about that.  We went to The Mall of America to the Underwater Adventures exhibit and were lucky to get a few usable shots of the Sea Turtles as well as some great Jellyfish shots.  Even though I have a very very large image library it always seems there is more that I need for a particular project.  I think we will still try to go out to the Minnesota Zoo yet as they have Sea Turtles in their Atlantic Reef exhibit.

Meanwhile I have been continuing to make acrylic skins as resource pieces for projects.  In this image you see two skins, the turtle image on fiber paste and a clear gel made with Golden Soft Gel (Gloss) with a few drops of Golden Iridescent Bright Gold (Fine) paint added as I spread the gel with a palette knife.  I have purposely left the folds of the clear gloss gel wrinkled so that it can be seen but in the finished piece that won’t be noticeable.  This is just a starting idea with many layers. skins and paints to be added yet.  It will be several weeks or more before the piece is near completion.

The fiber paste skin had been coated with Golden Digital Ground White (Matte).  I had changed the drab background around the turtle to blue in photoshop before printing on the white  skin.  I have been making the skins using Strathmore Paper Palette, a poly-coated paper for use as a disposable paint-mixing palette.  I can apply the Golden Fiber Paste or the Golden Soft Gel (Gloss) to the paper palette, paint on it there or coat it with the Golden Digital Ground and run it through the Epson printer still on the paper palette.  When I am finished printing and letting it dry for a little while I spray the printed piece with Golden Archival Varnish Mineral Spirit Acrylic Aerosol to keep the printed image from smearing if it is on a glossy gel surface.  This allows me to handle it as I move it around when working on a piece.  The paper palette, although not very sturdy, holds up through all of this and the finished dried gel or paste peels up extremely easily with the aid of a palette knife.  I even use two pieces of palette paper poly side facing poly side to hold or store my skins till I’m ready to use them.  This turtle with gold image is just a starting idea with many layers. skins and paints to be added yet.  It will be several weeks or more before the piece is near completion.