Blood on a sunlit floor - 23 May 2024

Blood on the dancefloor

Not quite, but also not what I started out to do …

Originally I was planning another attempt at the ‘sunlight on wooden floor’ that I tried already in watercolour here using gum arabic to get the transparency. This time I paid more attention to the actual dimensions of the floor, and that went well.

Then I painted the wood in various browns, which went … ok - I did the usual thing of pushing past the point where it was looking good (with some of the look of wood grain) but even so I had a wooden-ish floor. Then I varnished. Then I tried to put yellow light on it which is where it went wrong. Sadly the yellow acrylic I had was too green, and you can’t mix your way out of a primary colour (I think! maybe I’m wrong). So …

Top view of red and yellow on a wooden floor design

What happened?! Well, the yellow was too acrid, so I threw some red on there to see what would happen, then more yellow and red. Then I added silicone oil because why not? and then varnished the result.

CH3[Si(CH3)2O]nSi(CH3)3

As it happens, silicone oil (presumably polydimethylsiloxane?) and varnish do not work well together. Or do they?

Side view of red and yellow on a wooden floor design

From the side you can see that the surface is all uneven. Also if you touch it, your fingerprint lasts for a few seconds before it springs back into place. Wacky.

I like it, although it is pretty gross.