I picked some fresh fern in the Lagan Meadows to compare to the dried fern that I collected before. It produced a really vibrant green colour but not too much liquid.
I decided to paint an initial swatch, then add some gum arabic to see how it differed, adding only a little this time. With the gum arabic, the colour is more solid and consistent, whereas without it, the pigment separates into small freckles creating a more interesting textured effect.
It’s frustrating to see the paper warp with the watery pigments, forcing the watery pigments to concentrate in the newly formed grooves of the paper and not create a smooth wash of colour.
I will probably buy heavy water colour paper to produce the test swatches on and hope for a more consistent swatch, whilst also continuing to use the animation paper to see how each pigment reacts on it.
If it dries without warping on water colour paper, perhaps the pigments could be used in the creation of cut-outs for animating with.
This might also solve the issue of what to do about the small amounts of pigment produced as cut-outs are re-used over many frames, rather than having to paint each many individual frames.
