Cat Rocketship

I love love love love materials - chemicals and tools I can use in painting to achieve different effects and solve problems. I love learning everything I can about them - it started when I worked at an art supply store and spent slow days reading The Artist’s Handbook to learn as much about oil paints and mediums as possible. 

Now I’ve got oils down, but I still find new materials I want to add in.

Last night I was reading a book that is not at all about art - At Home by Bill Bryson. The book basically runs through the history that makes a modern home a home, and on the chapter on the Drawing Room I learned about shellac.

I think most people think that shellac is an acrid acrylic or polyurethane sealant. NO! Shellac is made by effing beatles. The female lac bug, actually. They secrete it as they eat up the trees on which they feed, then people scrape it off, purify it, and sell it - dry or mixed with alcohol.

Shellac flakes - the different colors are from beetles feeding on different types of trees. 

So shellac has been around for a long, long time. It’s got high scuff durability and - and this is something that really intrigues me - is valued for utilitarian objects because you can patch a scrape just by adding more shellac - it bonds to itself.

In poking around the internet, I’ve found that it’s not recommended as an art material by AMIEN, but that many artists use it successfully.

Shellac is my next experiment - I’ve been looking for something with which to seal the backgrounds of works on wood. Shellac will not yellow under exposure to sunlight, and creates a ground to which oils can bond. The only thing I’ll have to watch out for is that, should it trap water, it can “bloom” - turn white.

I’ll be venturing out to the local woodworking store soon to see what varieties of shellac I can pick up.