Come See What We’re Being Devoured By Lately!

You know that feeling, when your very soul is being consumed by a creature you yourself created? Don’t you hate that?

As far as demons go, I’ve got a respectable plenitude. There’s the Imp of the Perverse, who perches on my shoulder and whispers in my ear the very worst possible thing to say in every situation. There’s the gnawing serpent that feasts on my brainstem, sending intrusive thoughts to summon new squirts of delicious chemicals anytime the supply starts to dry up.

But I think the Art Supply Demon I’ve been battling this week is actually just another face of that shapeshifting polymath Addiction. It’s got a different mask every day, for me. Over the years I’ve managed to corral its influence into areas I can easily manage — I try to get addicted to things that aren’t too expensive, illegal or socially unacceptable. Art supplies as a vice can go toe-to-toe with wine or reality TV in terms of their level of acceptance amongst that coveted demographic, cis-het white people ages 25–65. Reveal that you have a wine cellar, and people get whiplash trying to decide whether to admire you or worry about you. Reveal that you have fifteen plastic bins full of untouched yarn in your spare room, and it’s sympathetic nods all around the table. At least it’s not Amway, right?

The rabbithole I fell into this week requires a little explanation. We’ve talked about Dura-lar before — it’s a semi-transparent film, strong enough to wash and re-use although they’d like you to buy more, that will take most drawing and painting media. The way in which it takes different media is what interests me, because I’m the kind of person who sees any given thing and immediately thinks, “How can I pervert that to my own ends? How could I use that in a manner not anticipated or recommended by the manufacturer?” When a medium says prominently on the package, “Not Intended for Your Specific Bullshit,” I go out to purchase That Specific Bullshit just to see why they say it won’t work.

So I did some of this Contrarian Experimentation with Dura-lar, and discovered that markers come out VERY BRIGHT.

But it’s not a great medium for markers, in truth, because they never dry. Seriously, I left this blue fox out on a table for a week and it was still wet. The ink beads on the surface here and there too, which is an interesting effect that I’d like to use in other applications, but I’d prefer to be able to control that.

All of this is because the Dura-lar I’m using is NOT their “wet media” variety. I’m using the standard Dura-lar, intended more for dry media. So we have a “Definitely Not for That Specific Bullshit” kind of situation here where I then went, “Okay, if it’s terrible for markers, it’s got to be completely atrocious for watercolors. Let’s try it!” If something sounds like a bad idea, you know I’ll fuckin’ be there.

You remember the result:

The same effects apply here — the beading in places, the way the brush can push previously laid-down paint ahead of it and create these banks of blended color that form stark edges, the blending on the surface — but watercolor actually dries, and then can be re-wet and mashed around and blended afterward. It’s tricky and weird, but I love it and I want to do more. And that’s the kind of fun you can have when you take warning labels as suggestions!

BUT. This still left me without a satisfying medium for the markers! I’ve tried many grades and textures of paper and found them all frustrating — none of them allow the surface blending I enjoy with paint, they soak up too much ink. But the Dura-lar doesn’t soak up enough, it’s unworkable. I needed something in between.

I sometimes do little drawings for my wife, just a lil something to make her feel good in the morning, and for a while I’ve been coloring on top of these stickers we got. They look like someone just scraped Instagram for content and algorithmically printed it into these little books — in some of them, the Instagram interface is printed on the fucking sticker. They’re low-rent. It’s fine, I just like to draw dragons in the clouds and make the flowers different colors. And while I was doing that, I found that the markers work beautifully on these goddamn stickers — they allow me to pick up the color I just laid down and blend it, or carry it elsewhere to work with, just like a brush. But the marker dries, too, and then it doesn’t smudge. It’s perfect.

So then the question becomes… what are these stickers printed on? What is this elusive material that does exactly what I want?

Tracking the stickers back to their source, I find the material listed as “washi paper.” Looking this up, I discover that “washi” is a traditional Japanese paper made with long tree fibers, which seems like not what we’re looking for. Further googling clarifies the issue: the word “washi” is often used these days to refer to paper that includes long plant fibers even if it’s not made in the traditional manner. And around here, we call paper blended with cellulose… vellum.

I lose my shit. I lose my shit in an artist way, which here means “I instantly feel the need to put on pants and drive to the art supply store regardless of the hour”. I could just get some on the internet, of course, but I want to touch it before I put my money down. I’m super tactile, especially with my art — I need to put my hands on something to really feel I get it.

So yeah, I drive to Michael’s, and I hold hands with the Devil and tear a corner off the packaging in the store so I can work a finger in… yes. This is it, big 8.5x11 sheets of it! I buy two packs.

And here’s the vellum. I’m still experimenting with it, but guys, it’s everything I wanted it to be. It’s so easy to work with.

This here is three colors, just three — yellow, brown, and one shade of green. Little highlights with the white gel pen. But look at that blending, it’s crazy! It’s so SMOOTH!

This foolishness is my wife’s fault — click through to see why.

And now the challenge becomes how to get this stuff on the computer without overexposing it. Scanning doesn’t work, makes it far too bright. When I put it up against a strong light, like taping it to the window, those highlights turn black, because they’re just blocking the light more than anything else. So that doesn’t work. The best way I’ve found so far is taking a photo of the thing in strong light against a white background. With a little post-processing that comes out looking pretty close to life. But it’s an ongoing experiment.