Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Torch experiments © Carol Nelson Fine Art

It's fun to experiment with the effects of heat from my butane torch on art materials.  I can imagine all sorts of abstract applications for these materials.
 Red foil - scorches to black, then silver, then melts
Green foil - scorches to turquoise and blue, then gold, then brown, then melts
 Gold foil - scorches to amber, brown, black
Note the cool bubble pattern.  All the foils bubbled.
 Blue foil scorches to green and gold.
This is a different gold foil - scorches to lighter gold, then silver, then black before melting.






In addition to the foils, I tried torching some other collage materials.

 Thin plexiglass - very cool melting pattern
 Silver foil on left
Piece of copper in the middle- copper changed color to a darker, duller version of the original piece
Strip of silver metal flashing (aluminum?) - This silver metal turned gorgeous shades of gold, amber, and brown tones and remained shiny.  Where I held it to the flame longer, it turned dull charcoal gray.
 Top - a leaf shape cut out of gold aluminum.  The right side of the leaf is torched.
Bottom - purple metal turned gold to silver to melting.
 Burlap - no surprise here.  I liked the blackened look.
140 lb painted wc paper - Being paper, I was able to burn a hole in it.  Nice singed effects around the hole.  If you want to collage on some paper with a really unusual edge, this would work well I think.




This is all I've torched so far.  I did them outside with a bowl of water on hand for dousing the flames.  I'm sure you will be seeing materials prepared this way in my future abstract work.
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