I promised the recipe for wheat starch glue last Monday when I blogged about backing silk with paper. Then I remembered that that I had given a very detailed blog about making wheat starch glue two years ago.
So I trawled thorugh my photos for inspiration and came across this collage done by my mother years ago – it’s a portrait of my father (from my son’s collection of paintings) done entirely with tonal text. It is an excellent likeness. This could have been done with wheatstarch glue on stretched paper. If you want to try something like this, try to avoid the very glossy paper as it wrinkles. Methyll Cellulose is an easier glue to work with.
I am currently doing a mini book for child artists on “Tone and Texture in the Arctic” and here is a tonal panel from the book. It get’s quite tricky working out the tonal value of the patterned textures, but I think it works…
and in case you think this is too boring for kids, here is the next illustration:
Lovely Lin! Feel that i could walk up to those lively penguins and shake their hands! Think that the tangled tonal values are spot on too.