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According to this site:
Chalk resist: Chalk resist is a thick paste made from powdered chalk mixed with water. This paste is brushed onto the desired areas of a sheet; once it is dry, the thick layer of chalk protects the underlying paper from wet watercolor washes. The chalk can be easily removed by counter-rolling the sheet or by rubbing it gently with a knife to reveal the clean white paper underneath.Why do I refer to this?
Recently I encountered various problems with my masking fluid a Talens one.First I almost fainted while I was masking some areas on one of my paintings due to its terrible ammonia smell.
And second.. Look what this thing did on my painting!!!
Though I remove it completely this thing stained my paper.
Anyway.. the combination of terrible toxic smell with THIS result made me look for an alternative solution.
Searching up and down the web I end up to the above “old recipe” and I decided to give it a try.Well.. it worked perfectly as you can see on this unfinished sketch.
So I will present you here how I made and how I used the chalk resist as an alternative to masking fluid.
As this tutorial is going to have plenty of photographs that I can’t post on one post, please avoid to write something until I finish.
First I bought a piece of chalk. Classic chalk for school use of the kind that is used on black boards. Not the synthetic one though. The chalk I bought is of the dusty kind one.
Then I crashed it in my mortar until it turned in a very fine powder.
Another photo here.
I put a small quantity on a porcelain plate and I mixed it with a little water
And then with a tea spoon I mixed it and rub it well until it got a creamy consistency.
The final mix looked like this:
To be continued below..
The mix was ready to use.
The sketch I decided to work is some marbles. (reference photograph from the RIL).
I wanted to mask the marbles areas in order to work with the background.Below I’m applying the chalk resist on my paper.
Chalk when mixed with water get a creamy colour. So it is easy to detect it even when it is dry.
On the other hand chalk doesn’t destroy the brushes as it can be rinsed completely of their bristles with water.
So any brush is suitable for applying it on your paper. Just wash your brush afterwards in your water container. Below you can see the brush I used. A no 5 synthetic.
Below you can see various steps of the chalk resist application. All the images were shot with my camera and are close ups.
After finishing the application I washed my brush..
And look!! It came out perfectly clean. No damage and not stuck bristles.
And below is the sketch scanned with the chalk resist dried. As you can see it has a pinky beige colour.
While it was drying I prepared my colours.
Then I wetted my paper as I wanted to make a wet on wet background.
As you can see the dry chalk changes colours when it gets wet.. but it stays in its place. ( I had to change a bit the contrast on this shot in order to see clearer the wet surface. The colour of the wet chalk is not brown of course).
And then I applied my colours.
To be continued. ( don’t post anything yet please).
And below is the application of colour on my background (scanned after it dried).
Now it was time to remove it.
According to what I read online old masters used to roll the back of the paper on the edge of their desk in order to break somehow the chalk.I made my sketch on my sketchbook and so this wasn’t so convenient. So I rolled a bit the paper with my hand ..
And then I thought something better.
I took a plastic card and I scrubbed the chalk of the paper.
Look below how I did it.
It is very very easy to remove it this way. I scrubbed it well until all chalk turned into powder again. ( I threw the powder in the bin). In order to be sure that there was no residue left on my paper I rubbed the surface with a dry soft cloth. ( a kitchen towel :lol:- just in case).
And below are the areas that I masked after removing the chalk.
I applied colour on some of the marbles in order to see that the paper was perfectly workable after removing the resist. I also lifted some colour from the background AND I re masked some highlights on top of the already applied colours.
Conclusion:
Who said that old recipes don’t work?
In this case the chalk resist worked better than the modern masking fluids.
Its pros:
It doesn’t smell.
It is easy to apply
It doesn’t destroy the brushes so you can take advantage of their precision during application.
It doesn’t stain the paper.
It is easy to remove.
It can be applied above dried colours.
It is easy to made and it is not costly.Its cons?
None. I can’t find any disadvantage.Below is my study finished.
Thank you for reading my review tutorial.
You can now post whatever you like. I’ll be glad to answer any questions.
THE END.
Fascinating technique, Marialena. Looks like a great way to mask out areas in a painting before applying paint and then be able to remove it an paint in the area previously covered. :thumbsup:
I’ll add this to The Watercolor Handbook tomorrow.
Sylvia
I tried the calcium carbonate paste on both white paper and over an already painted area. It held lines very well when I painted up to them. I used my crepe rubber cement eraser to remove the powder when I was done. I was able to paint right over the previously masked areas with no problem and it didn’t remove any of the existing paint or change the color.
It does’t work well to do a wet wash over it like you can with masking fluid. Some dissolved onto the brush and then made the paint next to it chalky. However it did show me how I could make a great steam or fog effect without using something like white gouache. Since there’s no pigment, just a little chalk, it’s see-through and very believable.
Thanks for the tip!
Jan
Thanks Jan for posting your results here!
Hm hm.. I’m not sure that we tested the same thing ( substance ) because the one that I used didn’t dissolve when I applied over it a colour wash. I did this on the first sketch with the tulip where I masked its stem and the leaf and then I made the background wash.
The chalk I used was for school use and left a white residue on my fingers before I turned it from a stick into powder in my mortar. The chalk you used is a food supplement…is it any chance to be something mixed in there?? Sometimes pills have a gelatine coating in order to be easier swallowed. Did these pills left any residue on your fingers?
I don’t have this crepe rubber eraser to test if it can remove the chalk resist of the paper, but the chalk I tested became hard as some sort of plaster.. I can’t see how this eraser would be able to remove something so hard dried ( that is the reason I scrubbed it after all as you can see in the photos). The old recipe said that they broke it off the paper, so when I saw my chalk drying that hard on the paper I thought that I was on a good road. I mean that this was what I had to expect..
Anyway..I’m not saying that you did something wrong. But it is obvious that the results vary according the substances of the “chalk” ( in quotes as I don’t know the substances of mine) is used.
So, and that goes to ALL, better test the chalk you are going to use, before you use it on a painting.
Wow Marialena, this technique is excellent!
My paper is very sensitive and masking fluid is dangerous.Ernst
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