I loved the colors I got in this soap but I can't capture it outside. It looks about as intense as it did wet, but I just can't get it nor can I edit for it because the software is suddenly not working.

I sometimes forget how much fun it can be to do patterns in a slab.

Not hosting this month's challenge has allowed me to participate. We are making a soap after "Fire and Water" by Vicki Frost, which riffs off of the cell effect acrylic paints can have. However, she makes the cells separately and adds them. She did get a bit of the real cell effect but not to the degree acrylics give. In paintings, the layer of soap is very thin; I suspect if you could get the true effect with soap, it would take many many layers to get a bar of decent thickness.

At any rate, for my base, I did layers. I don't have as large a slab as she has so I can't tilt my pour the same way or get as much movement so I improvised a bit to get the colors to mix around more. I like the effect which can be soft and dreamy or just funky and space-like. I am not a fan of the added cells, to be honest, but the base pour is fun to do and leaves much to be explored.

The second one looks more like the second and darker picture but the lighter one seems to give a bit more detail. Looks like an egg yolk disaster. I forgot to take pictures of a couple ones I poured but you get the drift. The first one and the blue/green one were thinner so I got a softer effect and the others were a bit thicker so the colors are more distinctive.

Each layer is 8-10 ounces (oils) of soap poured into a 9 bar mold. This way, the effects go all the way through the layer and aren't just on the surface. More work, but more interest while using up a bar.

I just saw this picture of Saturn's moon, Titan. My blue/green soap looks kind of like it!

Just a quick post. I haven't made anything particularly original lately but I liked how this turned out!

Yes! I had been trying to get this pattern but was missing it. I had a pattern in mind but the soap was too thin to do it (the messy part on the end.) I had to improvise although I was hesitant about over-swirling but then it happened! Out of the guesswork came the original pattern that I had been aiming for, or very close to it. It makes me think of stingrays but is way more voluptuous. Unfortunately when I was swirling, I was looking at the big picture and not at how the bars would cut so I don't know if individual bars will capture it. Ah well, next time.

Oh my my my. I have been negligent in posting. It is not for lack of soaping but more for lack of pictures. I got a new camera and have been having a great deal of difficulty in getting the pictures to download to my computer, although it's supposed to be a great deal easier. Ha! Not for the tech un-savvy, like myself.

We are having an ebru challenge this month, so I thought I would post some of my pattern attempts. Paper marbling is a truly fascinating medium with some glorious patterns that are very difficult to dissect. Some are more straightforward, thankfully for someone trying to translate them to soap, but some are on a scale that makes trying them in a small slab impossible, and some I just cannot figure out.

Anyhow, here are some of my tries for this month.

Last month was a gradient challenge. I used yellow with increasing amounts of black for my colors but I didn't find this to be as colorful as I would have liked. I got the mix from Will Kempart but his yellow was Chromium Yellow, if I recall correctly, and adding black gave some very bright lime greens, which I did not get. I got olive but I'm sure that's due to the yellow I had at hand.

Then I tried to make some finer gradients that would look more like a blush from one color to the next. I am not that great at hanger swirls. The picture insists on being sideways.

Currently setting up for another patterns so we shall see what comes of it.

I managed to make some pretty translucent soap without trying. it was at a lighter trace when poured which made part of the difference, I'm sure, as this is my normal recipe. I always love that alabaster look although sometimes the soap bar itself feels slightly different in texture than when it's at a medium trace when poured. 

I tend toward more colorful soap but sometimes I have to come back to wonderful grays and black, which I love, every time, even though I tend to park these colors in the back of my mind for periods of time. It was a gray day and these were taken next tot he window in natural light. I probably should have adjusted the exposure on the pictures but I like how warm the wood feels and the slightly darker look of the whole thing. Not terribly artsy but I don't really care!

So I tried to make a soap that looks kind of like Malachite. Needs some work and some tuning on the colors. Lots of malachite has bullseyes and I wasn't going for that but the more striated kind. I think this is a bit too edgy so if I try again, I will probably manipulate the mold some to smooth out the lines.

I filmed the making of three of the four layer. Well, I filmed all four but I can't seem to process the last layer, but I think three is plenty. The first pour was way too thin and got very blurry. The second pour is what you see in the picture. In the third pour, I lined my colors up in the container perpendicular to the pouring spout rather in parallel to it but I decided to pour it that way anyhow, to see what the difference would be. If you watch, I apologize for my messy soaping ways, tripping over the dustpan and rustling the paper on the floor so much. I'm not very professional.

Thin trace Ribbon Pour, first two layers.

Thin Trace Ribbon pour, layer three