conflagration​

In prior pieces, I had gotten frustrated with the fragility of the paper I was using.  It would sometimes get bleached by the glue, rip while I was repositioning the pieces, or buckle once I poured the final medium on top of it.  So, for this piece, I developed a new process using acetate and latex paint.  Latex paint is convenient because it's made to spread wide and you can get a lot of a single color relatively inexpensively.  I didn't want to buy the entire paint store, however, so I decided to get the "fundamental" colors and mix my own custom colors.  I had no idea what proportions to use, however, so I spent a good deal of time performing "titrations" (as Sherry calls them) to better understand the ratios.  Below, I'm  doing some experimenting with color mixing.  I love the color swirl in the first picture.

The acetate took the latex paint remarkably well, though it did require multiple layers to become completely opaque.

To make sure the strips were aligned consistently, I drew a grid on the board.  The second photo shows my cutting setup; pretty low-tech, but it works.  The following photos show the progression of layering the strips.  In all, the layering process took about two months, though I would typically work on it in spurts.

I was a little nervous about covering the piece in resin, since I had spent so much time on it, so I made a "tiny" version to experiment on.  I ended up using ArtResin, which is non-toxic but still possess the same qualities as regular resin.  I used two coats of it, and between coats roughed it up with sandpaper as the instructions say.  It ended up as advertised -- the resin was crystal clear, even with two coats.  The last picture shows the final product.