Painting on an Activa Supreme Tile

Following up on my previous post where I made a small tile out of Activa Supreme clay to use as a painting surface, I wanted to see how well paint would adhere to it. Before I get into that, I wanted to test out a couple things that I had read about it, and got some poor results, unfortunately. Information from the manufacturer said that the dried clay could be fired in a kiln. I don’t have one, but I figured an oven would work to at least help dry it out better. After only a few minutes in a hot oven the sample piece I made started to crack and blister. You can see the round explosions of moisture that erupted in the tile sample n the photo above. Maybe I should’ve let it air-dry longer, or used a lower heat (< 500.) The good news here is I don’t really have to fire or heat the tile to accomplish what I want with this material, but I did want to test this out. Another aspect I read was from watching a video demonstration of a sample piece of this being dropped onto a hard floor and not breaking. I tried the same thing on my wood floor, and you can see that it broke into several pieces. Not too surprising since I would expect the same thing from any piece of ceramic. As a result, I would recommend mounting the dry tile to a firm support like a wood panel, which I planned to do anyway. Glad I did all this on a sample piece.

Undeterred from these tests, I still wanted to see how well paint would adhere to the pieces that were left of my damaged sample. I painted a few swatches of color onto them using some homemade and commercial brands of gouache and casein paint. The paint went onto the tile very well. No beading up at all. The slight grey tone of the tile does cause the thinner layers of paint to have a more neutral appearance, but you could prime the surface with white first to brighten it up. Casein would work as a primer for gouache if you used a thin coat, and let it dry for a week or two. You can see a swatch of white on the large piece above. Acrylics had no difficulty on this. For oils, I would want to size the surface first with acrylic medium or shellac so that the paint wouldn’t sink in too much.

I’m pleased so far with how this is working, so next I’ll mount the small tile I made to a wood panel, and do a small painting on it. There’s one other test of an idea I have to see how I can make this material go further in an even thinner application, and I’ll show that in my next post.

Activa Supreme Clay as a Paint Surface

Well I’m back after a bit of a hiatus, and thought I’d make a post about a new painting surface I’ve been testing out. This is a clay tile that I made using the Activa “Supreme” air-dry clay.

It arrived a couple days ago just like you see it on the right of the picture above, a chunk of clay shrink-wrapped in plastic with a mailing label slapped on it. I’m pleased that the plastic didn’t get torn, or else that would have dried out the clay, so not crazy about the packaging of it. Anyway, I sliced off about a 1/3rd of the 3.5 pound chunk, and used that to make my first test tile/panel.

I threw the section I sliced off for a few minutes down on the hardwood floor to compress the clay and soften it up some, which is a standard process to begin molding with clay. I then flattened it out a bit with my palm into a rectangular shape, and started rolling it out. I used two thin strips of cut plywood to get it to an even thickness while rolling, all the while flipping the slab over and working the back as well, rolling evenly in all directions including diagonally. My Work space was covered in an old Navy blanket to keep the clay from sticking to the floor, but it really wasn’t that sticky anyway. The final slab I have here is about 3-4MM thick and approximately 8 x 7 inches. I trimmed off the sides into a rectangle, and also made a thin slab of those trimmed pieces that I can use as a separate test piece. The Information for this says a 1/4″ piece can air-dry in about 24 hours. I estimate that from this chunk of clay I should be able to get roughly two 9 x 12″ tiles at this thickness with some left over.

This is how the tile looks after 24 hours. Still not completely dry. The room was kept to around 65-70 degrees at about 45% humidity, and it’s still a little moist, but somewhat dry around the edges, which are starting to curl a bit. It was still a little pliable, so I put some weight on it to lay it flat, and will let it continue to stiffen up for a few more hours. The smaller test piece is more completely dry. I think I’ll try heating it some in my oven to see if that helps dry it out better. The information says the this material can be kiln fired, which I don’t have, but that would make the tile even harder. It shouldn’t be necessary, however.

My goal here is to see how this clay compares to the casting material I’ve been using to make similar tile panels, such as the Permastone or Durham’s Wood Putty powders. In this form, the clay is a little more expensive by volume, but I have an idea to make it less so. I wouldn’t say it’s any more work than mixing up the casting powders, just a different process, and so far it takes longer to dry. I’ll start some tests on the sample piece I made, and post the results soon. All this looks promising so far.

Self Portrait With Eye Patch

Here I am, playing the role of Pirate of the Pen. Old Greybeard, himself, captured forever in inky splendor.

Several months ago, I discovered the sudden vison problem in my right eye was due to a detached retina. The doctor inserted an oil compound in my eye to reattach it and help heal the eye. This morning it was time to remove the oil, and I was left with this fetching patch over my eye that I sought to record with a little self deprecating humor. I will return tomorrow to have it removed, and the eye inspected. Fortunately, I was born with two eyes installed, and the left one still works well enough. Next week I return again for cataract surgery, and hopefully that will do me for a while.

A Discussion About Paint Cap Design

A couple weeks back I received an email from Golden Paints asking if I could test out a new design of tube caps for them. A little over 2 years ago I had received a new type of cap from them, and it’s something that the company has continued trying to improve on. I few days ago I got a few of their newest design.

So, let’s talk about caps. Artist paints are sold either in tubes, jars, or sometimes pots and cans for large quantities; even the occasional plastic squeeze bottle. I know one artist who put all his paint in a syringe. All of these delivery containers have one issue and that is air. It’s not a problem for watercolor paints, since they are sold in pans, but tubes would be the other option, and dried watercolor paint is not an problem, even preferred by most artists. Dried watercolor in a tube would be a problem to get out, and also true with gouache paint. For acrylics or oils, and possibly casein, dried paint is a big problem in tubes or jars. The larger the opening, as with a jar, the more air can penetrate. Tubes are better in that regard, but the tube itself can sometimes split or leak for the metal ones. Plastic tubes are fine, but don’t roll up very well, so it’s harder to tell how much paint you have left.

Now let’s discuss caps. Caps work well compared to jar lids in that they seal a smaller opening so there’s less air getting in. They continue to be the weak point in the packaging of paint, however. For one, they are all (that I’ve seen) made of plastic, and plastic doesn’t age well. Metal caps might be better, but likely more expensive. I have had many older tubes of paint where the plastic cap has crumbled in my hand as I turned it. The constant stress on the cap over time would cause many of them to split or break. As a result, I resorted to saving caps from used up paint as replacements; however, there is no standard size of tube, so in many cases one cap will not fit another threaded tube. The threads of the tube itself is another problem area, so it’s always a good idea to try and keep that as free of paint as possible so that no dried paint collects there making the cap hard to twist open. Another option is to buy empty tubes with caps where I can just transfer paint from an old damaged tube into the new one.

As I look at the different types of caps that Golden has given me, I can see how they are addressing these different issues with the cap design. In the photo above, the large black cap is the one they sent me a couple years ago. The grey one on the tube of Open acrylic is what I assume to be their current packaged design on the market, and the white caps are what I received a couple days ago to test out for them. Like the black caps, these new one have a flip top that allows you to squeeze out paint without having to twist open the tube. The grey ones are twist off only. That addresses the problem with threads and dried paint, so I like that. It also makes the tube easier to wipe clean, and there’s no stress on the cap top causing it to break. The plastic hinge on the cap might be a weak point over time, but that’s not likely a big problem. One thing mentioned in the email I was sent is that there was a problem with the large black tubes in that they didn’t work well with the display racks that most art stores have for showing the paints, so they went back to a smaller cap design. For a twist off cap, I prefer the larger one, but they made an interesting point I hadn’t considered. I don’t have any of Golden’s Williamsburg oil paints, so I don’t know how well these caps would work with those, but I assume they will be using new caps for them as well as their acrylic line. I tried screwing one of these new white caps on a couple different brands of oils I had, but it didn’t fit – that’s the non-standard tube problem I mentioned before.

As I get back into painting again, I’ll continue testing out these new tubes and comparing them to the older ones. I appreciate the efforts that Golden is putting forth in addressing the problems we face, and making our painting experience less frustrating. I hope that other paint manufacturers follow their lead.

Taotree Fineliner pens

I got another deal on a new batch of pens, and this time it looks like it paid off. Unlike the last batch of the Leto brand, this time I got a set of 24 for just $8, and they all seem to hold a proper amount of ink. The point size is .38mm with a nylon tip. I’ll have to see how well they hold up, but feel okay so far.

New Drawing: The Mechanic

I finished a new ink drawing yesterday that I want to show. It’s based on a photo I took of a guy who works at a car shop where I got my vehicle inspected. The surface is 11 x 14″ Strathmore Heavy Weight paper primed with chalk paint. I used a couple different pens, mostly a BIC Intensity brand.

Drawing Final: Portrait of Georgia

Here’s the final state of the new drawing of Georgia. I wound up using several different pen types on this. I found that a BIC Intensity brand pen worked nicely for the shading areas. For the darker areas and background squiggles I used an off-brand gel pen. I have to be careful when using different pens, since sometimes the ink colors don’t quite match. but the blacks here all fit together okay.

New Drawing Started: Portrait of Georgia

I started a new drawing. This is a based on a photo of a woman who works up the street from me at a convenience store. Her name is Georgia. I started by scaling up the photo onto a sheet of copy paper in a rough outline, and rubbed some grey pastel on the back to transfer it to the work board. This is a sheet of heavy weight paper from Strathmore that I sprayed with 3 coats of chalk paint. I like this surface so far (series500.) It’s like a paper that’s thicker than watercolor 300#, but not quite as thick as illustration board. The chalk paint coating lets me lighten or easily clean up the ink lines. In the photo on the right you can see my reference photo setup as I start the shading. I’m not too happy with the marker pens I got recently (see previous post,) but I figured I might as well use up their ink since I had them.

Fixing Fineliner Markers

I found a good deal on these ink markers, but had a problem that I figured out how to fix, and wanted to share the experience. The markers are made by Leto Stationary, which I believe is a Japanese brand, and they look very much like the familiar Sakura Micron markers. These, however, are about half the price of Microns. They use the same model number as the Microns, too, 01 which is a .25mm tip. Not sure why they don’t just call it .25, but I don’t make the rules. There are other sizes and a brush available.

Unfortunately, I discovered after just a few minutes of drawing that this pen no longer made any marks. Thinking that the ink might have dried out, I took the opportunity to do something I’d been wanting to do, and open one of these pens up to see how it was made. As I guessed, there’s a long felt sponge inside that is soaked in the ink. The sponge is encased in thin plastic. The nib at the top can be pulled out with pliers, but the bottom plug is firmly glued on, so I had to cut it off with a hacksaw to get the bottom off, and pull out the sponge to inspect it. Doing so I got ink on my fingers, so I discovered that the sponge still had ink, and had not dried out. What I concluded is that the ink had sunk down to the bottom of the sponge, perhaps due to being stored upright in that plastic case. This made the top of sponge go dry. I flipped the sponge around, placed it back in the pen, and stuck the nib back in. Now the pen made marks again. We’ll see how long it lasts, and I may try soaking the sponge with fresh ink when it runs out to see if I can refill it this way. I’ve seen videos of other people refilling their pens from the top after removing the nib, but this top opening is too small to do that easily, and I don’t want ink to get inside the holder, just in the sponge. Maybe I’ll check my old Microns to see if any of those can be refilled that way.

Lastly, I’ve started making notes about all the different types of pens I use, and at some point in the near future will share my experience with how all of them work as drawing tools, pros and cons.

UPDATE: As I suspected, other pens in this pouch had the same problem. The ink didn’t last very long, even after cutting them open and flipping the sponge around. What seemed like a good value at the time turned out to not be such a deal. Perhaps this was just a dried up batch of pens, but I’ll not be buying anymore of this Leto brand any time soon.

New Drawing: Something For a Thirsty Man

Here’s a new drawing to show you. It’s on mineral paper (made with calcium carbonate) and a mixture of layout marker and Sumi ink wash. The highlights are drawn with a white acrylic pen.

Trying Out Mineral Paper

Trying out something new again. This time it is “mineral paper” made by Yasutomo. It’s a paper-like material made from calcium carbonate instead of wood pulp or cotton fibers. I bought a tablet of it at the 11×16″ size that is the 150 GSM thickness, but they also sell a 240 GSM type which would be equivalent to 150# paper stock. I made a couple sketches in ink, and on one I adding some color using washes of gouache and colored pencil.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this surface. I had seen advertisements of this sort of “stone” paper before, but it was priced more expensively, and only in small sized journals, so I had avoided it. Curiosity got the better of me. I imagined that it would be somewhat thick and sturdy, like cardstock, but no. It reminds me very much of drafting film, and is quite lightweight. It has something of a dull finish, but seems to take ink very well. The water from the gouache just sort of sits there, but the paint did seem to adhere well enough. I didn’t think the colored pencils (Prismacolor wax pencils) would work well, but they went down okay. The Yasutomo description says they do not recommend using oil media or oil pastels on this. Soft pastels draw okay on it; although, the surface is very smooth, and most other mediums seem okay with it. For gouache or caseins I would want to add a firm backing, and for that this surface would also adhere well compared to trying to mount drafting film. They also say that it won’t wrinkle from water added to it, but it will crease rather easily. If you look closely at the watercolor painting above you can see in the ground areas that I drew over with the pencils that it picked up the corrugated texture of the carboard, demonstrating how thin it is.

Gelatin Mold for Making Tiles

If you have been following my blog here for awhile you may have noticed that I often use homemade tiles of different plaster-like material as my surface for drawings and paintings. Traditional gesso is an ideal surface, but not without its inherent problematic quirks. As such, I’ve resorted to making thin tiles out of plaster mixes that do not require heat set or firing in a kiln. The two that I have used most often are made from either Durham’s Water Putty or Activa Permastone. These are powders that you mix with water that dry quickly into a hard surface. The water putty is nice, but yellow tinted due to the wood content, Permastone is white, but a bit more expensive.

The simplest mold I’ve made is just a thin wood frame placed on a sheet of glass that I pour the plaster into. This works okay, but I wanted to try and make a more complete mold with a bottom and sides. Silicone would work great, but I happened to have this gelatin material on hand for a different project. It’s an alginate gel powder from Alja-Safe called “Smooth-On.” When dry it forms a rubbery gelatin similar to silicone, but not quite as sturdy. I thought I’d give it a try to make a mold for casting my tiles. The above images show the steps I followed in a recent attempt that worked well.

First I mixed up the alginate in a 1:1 part ratio of water per instructions. As a mold for my gel I wanted to recreate a tile the same dimensions as a 9×12″ piece of plywood that was 1/4″ thick. I also happened to have an old picture frame that was slightly larger than that, 16×13″. I placed the plywood panel on a sheet of glass using some double-sided tape to hold it in place, and centered that in the frame. I then poured the alginate over the plywood and brushed it out to the edges of the frame, gave the glass a little shake to level it out, and waited about 30 minutes for the gel to set. When I removed the dried gel from the frame I had a nice complete mold for my tile.

I now was ready to mix up my tile using Permastone. Their instructions recommend a mix of 1.5 to 1, but I found that was too wet, so I used 1.5 cup powder to 1/2 cup water measure that gave me just enough to fill my mold to the top for a 1/4″ tile. I poured the mixture into the mold, shook the glass a little to level it out, and waited about 2 hours for it to dry. The dried tile was easy to remove, but needs a little cleaning up along the edges. The mold certainly is not going to last very long. I can already see a little tear along the edge even though I was careful removing the tile. Still, I think I can get 1 or 2 more tiles from it. I’ll likely invest in some silicone for a stronger mold, but this shows a good proof of concept that I can get a workable tile using this process.