Liquids and additives
Most people start with just plain water in both the dropper and reservoir and some good and interesting results can be achieved with this simple start. Here’s one of my early attempts with plain water.
The next stage is to add a thickening agent to the water in the dropper. This will make the mixture more elastic and the result more glass-like. I’ve been using Guar Gum for this which is available from places like health food shops or from Amazon.
I don’t believe there’s a definitive rule of how much to use, but I’ve tried about 1/4 teaspoon in 500ml water and the results are interesting. Two things to note though :-
- It’s very difficult to get all the powder to dissolve and there can be minute white particles in the resulting mixture which will show in the water drop collisions. The recommendation is to strain the mixture repeatedly through old tights !!
- The Guar Gum mixture can smell a bit after a while 😦
It is also quite common to use milk in the dropper but I haven’t tried at the time of writing this.
To add another element to the drops, ordinary food colouring can be added to produce coloured drops.
Next time
- Backgrounds
