Thursday, July 21, 2016

Trying Gelatos


I've had a beautiful set of Faber Castell's Gelatos for quite a while now, and I finally got around to trying them.  I had a 6" x 8" piece of 1/4" hardboard covered with crumpled masa paper (a type of rice paper) so I decided to work on that since I have often worked with watercolor on this surface.

Before I started, I watched a few videos on U-Tube about how to use them.  One thing I learned is that they behaved differently on papers that have different absorbencies.  I painted a rectangle of white gesso in the center of the board to see how differently the gelatos would act on the masa paper versus the gesso.  It was very easy to lift the color - and to spread it very thin - on top of the gesso.

The Gelatos are stick pigments that come in a screw-up tube like chapstick.  They are water soluble.

A combination of the rough surface and the large size of the gelatos (about 9/16" in diameter) led me to not try for detail.  I just rubbed on color, vaguely suggesting roses and leaves.  After rubbing the pigment on I wetted it with plain water in a brush and moved it around and blended it a bit.  Then I added more pigment that I didn't blend.  (You can also blend the Gelatos by rubbing them with your finger or a dense sponge that comes with the set.)

The result was very colorful and rich, but just a bit too bright for me.  So I used another product that I've had for a while but hadn't used before.  I sprayed the surface with Perfect Pearls spray mist and used gold and blue patina.  That dulled it down just a bit, and added shimmer.  However, some of the Gelatos are metallic and have a shimmer of their own.

I decided to add a rough little frame in the middle with gold dimensional paste.  This had been a fun experiment so far.  But, now what?

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