Experimenting

Trying to capture a Northern Lights feel in a soap is more difficult that I thought. I've been trying for some time without results that have been satisfying. I feel close but not there. I cut one of my attempts thinly and back lit it and it's not bad, but I think I need more green soap and less black and greener green soap. I thought about the idea of M&P and wondered if it might be useful, although when I've seen the Northern Lights, I haven't thought transparency as much as been fascinated with the shapes and curtain-like effect it can have.

At any rate, I have added M&P to CP soap only a few times with okay results but this time I blended melted M&P into CP batter, wondering if it would change the CP and make it more translucent. AN interesting experiment, to be sure, and it requires more attempts. I'm afraid both of my tries got very very hot in gel which may have altered my results. In the green one, it seems like the M&P precipitated out, to the bottom but I got an interesting rocky kind of look, which I like. In the other, I used an FO that accelerated more than I anticipated, probably because I had to soap fairly hot so I could blend in the M&P so I got this wad of blue and violet soap. I had been looking at pictures of the universe and wanted to get a gas cloud effect, not a gas blob effect, plus either there was a bit of separation or a couple blobs of M&P melted away. The soap got smoking hot! It's kind of ugly, the universe soap, which is unfair because the universe is stunning and I hope some universal force does not smite me for the misrepresentation. If I'm found dead in my house, smoking at the ears, you will know what happened and beware.

I did manage to make a very nice normal soap, but it's for a challenge and I shall post it later, plus I have to get decent pics of it.

Just a quick post

When you come across a beer named Wild Devil, you have to soap with it. Nothing original in the soap design but I liked how it mirrored the devil's horns.

To continue the bird series....

I tried to make some Owl eyes because they are so intense. Unfortunately, the non-accelerating FO I used did accelerate (not really that surprising. It seems to happen all the time) which caused a fair amount of glopping. The eyes don't go all the way down because the batter was too thick but the effect overall is not too bad. One of my son's friends actually recognized them as owl eyes! That made me happy!

I may try again or I may try a couple feathers which have such beautiful patterns on them (in them?)

For our soap challenge, the B&W one, I opted for novel rather than skillful in terms of a pour and made a Jack Skelington, whom I love dearly.

And this is one of the most inspired soaps I have seen! Made by Cara Staab. Soap onthe left and inspiration photo on the right. LOVE IT.

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=58149&page=2

Birds

I cannot recall what started my searches for colorful birds. That's not to say it wasn't a good or inspired idea. After all, I have not a clue what prompted me to make my first batch of soap but whatever it was, it lead me to an awful lot of fun. Looking at the numerous colors, forms, shades makes me stare at the screen almost as if catatonic, but it's really mesmerism. It seems impossible. How would it feel to be so beautiful, graceful, strong yet fragile? I'm sure they feel normal and like any old bird but little do they know....

It was not my best idea, perhaps, to turn to bird pictures for soap inspiration because anything I make will crumple under the scrutiny between the bird and the bar, but it was still worth the try.

You can see the dilemma, I'm sure. From the first, I wanted to make a more abstract soap, with the feel of the wings spread for flight and the incredible colors surrounded by the blur of green. Yes, I should take my pictures in real light instead of beneath the kitchen light, but it's been gray gray gray here and the light is extremely cold and bluish. I used Nurture's Mint Green for the background, which looks more lovely in real person and much more washed out in the picture. At first, I was happy with the feel of the swirl but the next day, all I could see was a crab. I will have to use the same technique to do a sea theme, I guess.

The other soap was intended to be very literal. I really wanted a soap version of the row of birds sitting on a branch. Mine looks, um, not literal. And the branch looks a bit like a piece of poo. My yellow batter was YELLOW but seems to have run and hidden behind some green, some green that went from a fresh spring day and mated with some pea soup. Bah. I wisely decreased the diameter of my swirl tool but unwisely did not decrease it enough. A bit too much, wouldn't you say? I may try again but with a much thinner tool and see if I can get just that bit of soap moving instead of what looks like Nutribullet version of the beauties' fine pates.

I did like the top of the first soap.

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!