Altering national geo pages with citra-solv

[Heather Wilkie (paganfrog)]

citra-solv is the brand name of a cleaning product, from my own experiences I couldn't find it in any uk stores, its an American brand so I bought my bottles from amazon. I learn about the technique only from online mentions and it was stated that not many other cleaners worked as well as citra-solv. so im sticking with this brand. what you do is sprinkle the liquid onto a page with interesting images and then layer another page onto of that and so on. you have to let it sit for about 10-15 minutes (it works better if the atmosphere isn't so cold) (oh and I strongly recommend excellent ventilation with windows open as its not good to keep breathing the fumes of this stuff.) after about 10 minutes carefully separate the pages and allow to dry. 

I will say it again in shouty words, THIS MUST BE DONE IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA.

heres some examples of pages I have altered.

[Coco Muchmore]

So fun! Thanks for showing these!

[Heather Wilkie (paganfrog)]

thanks Coco, its fun to create some unique images and backing papers.

[Carien van Hest]

Interesting. Thank you for the information. I will look up the ingredients and try to find something like it here.

[Heather Wilkie (paganfrog)]

I purchased my bottle of citrasolv on Amazon

[Marcia Rosenberger]

How interesting, Heather! Thank you for sharing. I've been reading about it and, from what I understand, it's a degreaser based on lemon and orange oil. So perhaps another degreaser will achieve the same or close effect. I'll test with what I have here... ;-)

[Carmela Rizzuto]

Tutorials for using Citra-Solv to alter magazine pages available on internet--definitely need very good ventilation.

https://www.citrasolv.com/altering-magazines-for-use-in-mixed-media

[Marcia Rosenberger]

Thank you for sharing, Carmela.
It worries me that it is a strong product and she doesn't wear gloves...

[Bill Lowenburg]

Hey Heather, that's a nice effect. Old magazines with clay-based photos (I don't know the proper term except clay supposedly has something to do with the printing process) are fun to fool around with.

I've gotten some interesting effect with National Geo and other old high-end mags like Esquire and Vanity Fair by tearing out the page, just crumpling it up and sinking it in a bucket of warm water. After a few minutes, remove the paper and uncrumple. Some of the ink/clay base falls away, some shows distress, etc. Then I let it dry and after that can glue to a substrate, paint on it, or just enjoy as is.

I'm kinda shy of working with solvents, so water seems like a good solution.

Have fun with your experiments!

Bill

[Heather Wilkie (paganfrog)]

@Bill- yes the solvents in citrasolv although it’s not a nasty smell, it it pretty pungent and overpowering to the senses. I have to be careful and pick a time when my kids are at school as I don’t have a separate safe area for this particular activity. I do it in our dining room and I have to open all the windows and even then it can still give me a buzzyhead if I don’t take enough breaks outdoors. So yeah, it’s an activity I have to do a big batch of pages and then that’s it for a long time

[Hélène LAGACHE]

@ Bill

I tried your technique... and it works. I don’t like solvent fumes either.

[Love Kall]

I use that stuff at work. Maybe I'll take a bit home and play with it - what a freaky effect. Wonder what it does to photographs/photo paper material. Thanks for sharing.

[The Artful Writer]

Great effect. I wonder if I can find that it in Australia.