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cheap-ass art!
Apr. 13th, 2006 04:47 pmI bought a clutch of Sailor Moon animation sketches off eBay a few weeks ago. They were way cheap (two bucks for the whole set I think). Two went neatly into little standard-size mats. One will be diary fodder. But the two that had enough artin' on them to take up the whole sheet were badly damaged from being pried off the backs of their cels. Pretty much valueless to a serious collector, not restore-able, but still the remnants of a once-proud civilization. What to do?
Well, Dick Blick had a canvas sale, so I grabbed two stretched canvases in whatever-size-they-are (9x12? 11x14? I forget) and some matte medium. Coated each canvas in the medium, then put down the drawings, letting the moisture help stretch out the crumpled bits and sticking the totally ripped-off bits back where they belonged, like a jigsaw.
The sketches are in pencil, with one or two colored pencil bits to indicate shading or whatever to the people who did the cels -- in this case red, yellow, a light blue, and an orangey thing. Not very bright, but I brought out the blue/yellow picture with some compatible pale blue acrylics and yellow Prismacolor (thanks, evil Cabal!). The orange and red one got tinted with yellow and gold mulberry paper. Mulberry paper is neat with matte medium -- it goes totally transparent, and you can also mush it up to disguise where the edge of the sketch meets the canvas if you like. Let that dry, then cream and yellow Prismacolor to lighten up some passages and ease the transitions in others. Apply a final coat of medium as a varnish, let it dry, and you have two pieces of scrap transformed into pop art for around ten bucks, ready to hang.
Well, Dick Blick had a canvas sale, so I grabbed two stretched canvases in whatever-size-they-are (9x12? 11x14? I forget) and some matte medium. Coated each canvas in the medium, then put down the drawings, letting the moisture help stretch out the crumpled bits and sticking the totally ripped-off bits back where they belonged, like a jigsaw.
The sketches are in pencil, with one or two colored pencil bits to indicate shading or whatever to the people who did the cels -- in this case red, yellow, a light blue, and an orangey thing. Not very bright, but I brought out the blue/yellow picture with some compatible pale blue acrylics and yellow Prismacolor (thanks, evil Cabal!). The orange and red one got tinted with yellow and gold mulberry paper. Mulberry paper is neat with matte medium -- it goes totally transparent, and you can also mush it up to disguise where the edge of the sketch meets the canvas if you like. Let that dry, then cream and yellow Prismacolor to lighten up some passages and ease the transitions in others. Apply a final coat of medium as a varnish, let it dry, and you have two pieces of scrap transformed into pop art for around ten bucks, ready to hang.