Black and Whites

I did a B&W Ribbon pour lest night and got some funky results. I am using low water because it keeps the colors more distinct from each other, or at least that is my observation, but I'm having a hard time getting a deep black, even though the batter looks oily black. The gel is different on low water soaps and I'm wondering if that makes a difference or if it has to do solely with water content and not the gel. Or maybe I'm really not putting enough black in it.

Anyhow, I got this out of the mold last night and I got such a kick out of it! Sorry, I didn't get the photos cleaned up yet and it's been nothing but cloudy cloudy cloudy with the flattest blue light; I need to get some outdoor photos but I was hoping for some sun. Not likely any time soon.

Decided to try some lily pads and a pond and it came out fairly well, although the surface was not smooth, because of doing a back-to-back soap. The other side was dreadful, so we shall just pretend it didn't happen. It is so difficult to get photos of what our eyes see, or so it seems to me, and I liked the variation I got in the water, so I took another turn at it. Since we had a snowstorm, I thought I'd take pictures of it coated with snow, for an On Frozen Pond look. It was more difficult than I thought because for some reason my camera wouldn't get a good focus on it often (too cold out?) and then the melting snow started turning the soap white.

This next week or two will be filled with black and white soaps for a challenge. It's such a classic and classy combo, but now the challenge is to design something to do the combo justice. It will be tough and there will be stiff competition, no doubt. I've done a couple but am waiting for a killer soap to come out of the cut. Not certain it will happen. Started getting a wet spot on the black soap so it has to dry out before any more photo shoots.

Back at it

Vacation and holidays can sure mess up a person's soap schedule. I had a fair lull there as I had a flurry of cleaning, which soaping can undo in about, oh, 2 minutes, and then I had to keep the house clean until the house sitter came while we went on vacation. In the last few weeks, I managed to unload about 30-40 pounds of soap so I have room at the inn and can finally mess up my house up a little bit.

I decided to try Nurture's Really Red as a base as I've only used it as accent before. The name is spot on because it is indeed really really red. It's like I can't wrap my mind around it; I keep looking at it trying to decide if it's too loud or if it's okay. It's lathering pretty white for a new soap, so cured, the lather should be white. It would make a great goth soap if you have a good hand with black such that it doesn't give gray lather. It would be a surprising thing to have such a richly colored and color saturated soap with white lather. Maybe I'll put that on my list of soaps-to-do.

I love the technique of using high and low water batters in the same soap for the color variations it gives. I haven't gotten the strong halo effects Auntie Clara has gotten in some of hers nor the dramatic color variation she got when making her blue ultramarine soap but I suspect micas won't give the same degree of that because they aren't pigments but are particulate. It's okay with me because I still like what I get. Next time I won't add a touch of Khaki Yellow though- looks brown and bruised.

I have seen some extraordinary work done with polymer clays and caning and have a small frog covered in the most remarkable tiles. They are stunning and some of the designs boggle my mind in terms of how they put the clays together to get such shading and structure. The idea of caning seems like something that would lend itself to soap potentially so I gave it a go today with visions of stunning spirals tempered by the likely reality that it would be ugly to fair. It was very time intensive and I put as much variety into color combos that I could get with my block of soap so I could see what came out best. I got plenty of air pockets and a few nice spots but the process of rolling the soaps out needs tuning badly. I have a few ideas but it takes enough time that I will let my ideas percolate and get refined in my mind for a while before I give it another go. I feel potential there though!

And last, my attempt at making a Fordite-like soap. Didn't go as planned as usual and had to spin it but to good effect, I think. I like it!