Clorox anyone?

(This post by Neda)

I am notoriously impatient especially when it comes to following lengthy artistic instructions. Once, I even ran away in tears from a so-called “collage class” with a renowned collagist in Austin. In brief, I perceive myself as a spur-of-the-moment artist, which is why I love collage (instant gratification) and experimenting with whatever is available to me at the moment.

(Aqua-N.Doany ©2007)

Here is an example of such whimsy, aka a fun idea born out of almost nowhere (pictured here). It started when my 15-year old son accidentally spilled water on a photocopied color drawing he was working on. Having inherited a good eye and an adventurous spirit from his mom (of course), he came over to my studio to show me the interesting splashes of color the water had done to his design. He asked me if we could experiment with one of my photocopied color sketches. We then proceeded to the kitchen faucet where we experimented further. In the background, the washing machine was churning about and I came up with the idea of adding bleach to our experiments. I reached for the bleach bottle but something cleverer caught my eye: the Clorox Bleach Pen. Aha! Why did I not think about that earlier? A pen, I can handle. A bleach pen, I can experiment!

I took a small painting which I was just about to discard to oblivion and copied it using a regular ink-jet printer and photocopying paper. I then proceeded to draw squigglies over the photocopied image and to my surprise, the results were quite interesting. Wherever the bleach pen touched the colors, the latter seemed to fade instantly. I was afraid the bleach might ruin the paper entirely so I ran the photocopy under water and blotted it between two pieces of paper towels. Keeping with the laundry day theme, I let the photocopy dry over the dryer. Once set, I then re-colored the photocopy, making sure to leave the bleached parts blank. Et voilà…