look...its the last one

hmmm..I use to hairspray them all but I am too lazy ....oh well if it smuges I'll just throw it away...my art isn't that special....but hey thanks for the compliment

 

I hear you about not caring & that's fine if that's your mood. Some day you or someone else may think it is special. I've just about thrown things away after doing them & later came to like them.

Just want to mention to other artists who heard 'use hairspray' that I learned a lesson the hard way, thinking: Oh, hair spray is basically the same thing as lacquer, it'll work. I used it on a pencil drawing I did. So I put it inside a sandwich matte sprayed it with the hair spray with the matte in place, since it was all I had at the time, and tucked it away & forgot about it. It wasn't like I was marooned on an island, just remote & impatient.

Several years later I happened on it. By this time, it had taken on sentimental value because the person had grown up & we had gone through a lot of changes, so I wanted to frame it to give to her.

When I lifted the cardboard Matte to rematte & frame it, the part I had sprayed with hairspray through the opening was like 3 shades of yellow & contrast-faded while the surrounding paper was protected from the hair-spray & still pure white. So I couldn't change the matte size. It kind of looked like bikini lines on a tan, only in reverse

Hair Spray is An Archivist's Nightmare! :X



Yes, I did learn this by trial & error (failure) so, I post it for your benefit because this is the hip forums —the hick forums is somewhere else & I've been there, believe me...

The moral of course is don't use hair spray or anything random to fix your drawings because other chemicals are present which are not Acid-Free. Certain substances react with the paper over time & will eventually fade your drawings into oblivion, although who knows how long, since I don't think they had hair spray hundreds of years ago. However many of Leonardo da Vinci's (1452 — 1519) sketches survived, so he probably didn't use anything on them at all & tucked them away in a binder with a facing page that didn't move.

This took a few years. By then you might be famous, or want to show someone. Though Krylon is about $7 at an Art store or slightly less in a Hobby or Craft store & I hate the smell of it, I found it at Walmart (there goes the market) for around $2 because they don't know what it is priced in specialty fields. This is workable fix. That means it will preserve your art from smudging but you can change it or add to it, as long as you haven't carved into the paper, that is. Avoid Triple Thick Crystal Clear Glaze Krylon at all costs. It goes on so thick it is more apt to run & dry cloudy with a slight orange peel of bubbles since because of it's high viscosity & thickness don't have as much time to get to the surface & burst, leaving some pock marks. I still think Krylon sucks & always gives me a headache.

You also have non-workable fixative at the Craft shops called by dozens of names, like Clear Acrylic Sealer. Read the back (if they'll unlock the case) or make sure to pick out one that is Photo safe, etc.

The one I really like the smell of (is this because they won't sell it to you or something?) is Clear Kote; a clear lacquer made by Plasti-kote since 1923. This stuff is moderately priced & lasts a long time. So $4.50 is not a big investment. I have emailed their company in Medina, Ohio (not the birthplace of Mohammed) & they are cool with where you can get it. I noticed some places were just stocking one brand because it was easier to sell out to Krylon. So that smelly junk was taking over Michaels & Craft stores. www.plasti-kote.com or toll-free 1-800-431-5928 if you don't know which local retailers stock it. A lot of car paint stores actually have it. The can reads, "• All purpose protector —will not yellow • For crafts, home , office, shop & art studio." I think these people deserve the little biz this might generate because they've been around forever, make a terrific product which doesn't stink like Krylon & they busted me up when I emailed them from out of State & made jokes about where I lived.

I have gone through gobs of this & it lives up to its claim to protect against heat, cold, acid, alkali, corrosion & water. And I found it by just starting with crappy hairspray ruining stuff, to sprays that melted prints.

Also use acid-free media to start with because if you go drawing on the back of the cardboard that comes out of your Dad's new shirts, that's gonna break down on you & suck & get you discouraged & probably to quit. Anyway, I seem to be able to make a diatribe out of any topic, so please don't take it the wrong way. I just live an existential life in cyberspace & would rather teach people who want to learn for free & only if they are interested than those who are not & just being made to do it because it's a waste of both of our time. Have fun drawing (and don't drool on your desks like they did.)

 

you didn't catch me drooling did you...I want to learn and taking advice comes naturally to me if it is good sound advice and ....surely yours was ....well informed and to the point...I will take your advice and use it... I do suppose that my feelings for my art might grow in time and that if I take a little time and effort now I might be able to have my art around for when I finally do grow to appriate it..... ...or something like that right??

 

Ha! You're funny. Oh, no, it wasn't aimed at you, it's the audience factor. Maybe somebody reads this post 6 months from now. You just gave me the idea for a post about the experience cause it popped into mind. I figured save some people some grief in due time. Or maybe you change your mind as you said. Who knows? I've thrown a lot of stuff away.

No, you seem eager to learn. I always figured if people want to learn they sort of absorb it while you are trying to give it out, so it's like multiplied. OK, have you ever met somebody that was super-easy to talk to & then met somebody else that you couldn't say the right thing to? There's definitely a receptivity factor on that other end.

Yeah, we do have seasons. I stop, I start, I stop, I start —the only thing you never want to do is stop & never pick it up again, cause then you've quit. It's one of those things that you get stale at, if you quit. But it's natural & healthy to let the brush rest a while, usually after one of my real productive spurts. Life will get you busy doing other stuff & meanwhile you are gaining inspiration, like storing up juice in a battery. Or you're writing, or you're working on computer art, or downloading new music, going to the lake, watching the sky. Then you have inspiration, information, subject matter: a story to tell. So you have another season. It's like a fruiting tree. It's not always able to produce. It would exhaust itself.

 

very beautiful, i love it.
pastel, personally is my favorite medium to use, i love the way it layers.

i have yet to finish a pastel project I've been working on for quite some time, but I'm quite happy with the results so far...

keep it up, come_do_drawings, it's absolutely lovely.

 

thats really awesome. its so tense i feel myself clenching my jaw just looking at it!

 

thanks again for all the lovely comments...