Altered NatGeo's

Have you heard of the technique where you use CitraSolv to alter the ink on National Geographic pages?  I took a course on it last year at Create -- and the instructor, Cathy Taylor, has YouTube videos posted.  There's a series of four videos, and really worth watching.

We decided to do this technique last week in the PRC art class that I co-teach.  Basically, the CitraSolv dissolves the ink on the clay-coated premium NatGeo papers, resulting in one of a kind designs that can be further processed, or used as is, for collage papers.  We had to do it in the parking lot because of the fumes...but the ladies had fun and we made some beautiful papers.  Here is just a small sampling from one magazine only; aren't they cool!

Next week we'll take the papers we made and further process them with stencils or paint.  I was doing up some samples for the class and here's a look.  These were hard to photograph because the glossy magazine pages kept reflecting the flash.

This first one is 8x10" uses a fish stencil from The Stencil Girl.  I used it on heavy Bristol paper and collaged several other papers to make a sea scene.

The second one is 8x10 also and uses leaf stencils (I think from Crafters Workshop).  I cut oak leaves from several different papers with cool patterns.  To some, I added a touch of metallic copper paint.  The quotation is heat embossed in black.  It was serendipity that the globe in the upper right was not dissolved by the CitraSolv; it echoes the quotation beautifully!

These next two are smaller scale, and use new fish and tiger stencils that I bought from iStencils.  In person, the backgrounds on these are amazing.  

 
And finally, two more.  The cityscape and reflection stencil is from the Stencil Girl; the aspen/birch trees are from The Crafters Workshop.  I added a bit of glitter to the cityscape reflection.