If A Mouse Could Fly

Using Workable Fixative on Citra-Solv Pages

Well I'm excited to say I have had another great art day with JennyAnnARtist. She had a new technique she wanted to share with me while I had one I wanted to share with her.  Jenny learned that if you spray workable fixative to your Citra-Solv pages, any medium will work.  This created a toothy barrier on the paper so that the glossy pages would hold more mediums applied to the surface. (If you missed my Citra-Solv tutorial, check out my post called "Citra-Solv Painting." Its a great medium with lots of possibilities!) Of course I had to try this out, so let's see what happens!

We took a couple of my Citra-Solv pages outside and laid them down onto a flat surface.  Then she sprayed my pages with an even spray of workable fixative.  We let it dry for a couple of minutes, and then brought them inside. Now it was time to see if the workable fixative spray would work.  

With this page I saw within the ink splatter a UFO flying over land and water. I took several Permanent pens to draw my lines to create each object. They seemed to adhere to the paper a lot better due to the workable fixative. I couldn't resist drawing a cute little mouse flying the UFO.😍

Now it was time to add color to my paper. I wanted to use something other than paint, so I tried different types of markers. First, I tried Prismacolor markers. The color didn't show up very well on the paper, so I moved on to the Copic markers.  They worked much better, but I found you had to be careful. The Copic markers would take all the ink off of the paper if you added to much color or pressure. The black ink from the paper would adhere to the tips of the markers. I had to make sure to wipe them off onto a paper towel before using them again.  This kept the color from becoming muddy.

After adding the Copic markers, I decided to add some detail with a white gel pin. This finished the UFO.  Now it was time to move on to the water.  I wanted to see how the acrylic ink worked on the workable fixative, so I decided to try using various blues to create the water. The acrylic stuck to the paper in a sporadic manner leaving a lot of the visual texture from the paper bleeding though.  It was a nice effect for creating a natural background. 

I blended a white acrylic ink where the water meets the sand. Dark blue and violet were blended into the deep dark portions of the waves. Green was added to the land to create mounds of trees. I mixed brown and white to create the color of sand. I added the sand color down the shore line between the water and trees.

The sky was the last to paint. I was curious to see how acrylic paint would work. I got out a yellow and added it to the circular globes in the sky. A bit of water was added to the yellow to create a more subtle color to make it more blend-able with the background. Violet and black were mixed together to create deeper shadows around the yellow orbs. Once that was completed, I added more detail with the white gel pen. 

The workable fixative worked for most of the mediums used.  Overall it worked well in applying permanent marker, acrylic paint, and Copic markers.  The Prismacolor marker was the only medium I used that didn't work very well. Now I'm curious to see if oil pastels or chalk pastels would work on the workable fixative.  Let the experimentation continue!