CitraSolv is a household cleaner that I use to make the most exquisite designs and formations on paper. It cannot be just any paper. It works with National Geographic Magazines and melts the initial inks used in the magazine, thus erasing the original photography. I am then free to manipulate the inks into designs of my own choosing or just leave them to hug within the closed pages for awhile and form their own designs. I then use these original pages of mine for my artwork and incorporate them into whatever I see fit.

 

 

This painting “Complexities” is a favorite of mine as it uses the CitraSolv art paper in the back ground and I then embellished it further with found objects and words.

Did I discover CitraSolv myself? Oh how I wish. But no…I found this out through a friend and upon hearing about it, I then researched it on the Internet. I was delighted to find a huge following of CitraSolv artists around the world.

 

 

It is perhaps appropriate that this piece is titled “In My Garden.”

This is another piece of art I did with the magic cleaner.  But this time, after manipulating my inks and forming the pattern I wanted, I then took my dry air compound and created a flower for “this garden”. I was quite pleased with the effect.

The wonderful thing about dry air compound is that it dries hard like clay, but while you are working with it, it is never sticky or dirty. And once formed, it dries within one to three days, although I can’t usually wait that long, and I end up painting it and attaching it to my canvas well before it is solidly dry.

 

 

Another CitraSolv adventure. This is “Swimmy”…inspired by our second trip to Mexico, this time to Mazatland in January of 2011. It honors the beautiful waters and the stunning creations that are housed beneath the waves.