SMF March 2021 Soap Challenge - Air Blow Technique aka Dutch Pour Technique aka Wind Blow Technique

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earlene

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Welcome to the March 2021 SMF Soap Challenge. This month’s challenge is the Air Blow Technique aka Dutch Pour Technique aka Wind Blow Technique.

PLEASE READ ALL RULES for the challenge.

SMF Challenge General Rules

1. To enter you must have a minimum of 50 posts and have been a SMF member for at least one month (sorry but no exceptions on this).

2. The only members eligible to vote are those with their names on the sign-up list - regardless of whether or not you have submitted an entry. The sign-up list will be posted in this thread.

3. This month’s voting will be password locked. Passwords will be sent by private message (via SMF conversations) to registered participants ONLY, so please check your messages when the voting begins.

4. A separate entry thread will be created and this is where you will post photos of your entry soap. Please do not post photos of your entry until the entry thread is opened. Post pictures of your entry soap only in the challenge entry thread.

Non-entry photos are always welcome and may be posted in the general challenge thread. The challenge thread should be used to upload pictures of any of your challenge attempts (other than your entry) where you can ask for advice and discuss the technique with other members, and provide helpful hints you learned along the way.

5. Your soap must be made after the monthly challenge has been announced.

6. You are allowed to change your entry photo until the entry thread closes. If you decide you want another try after you post your entry, and you like the second better, you can change it up until the deadline.

7. In the spirit of advancing our soap making skills, all members who sign-up for a SMF Challenge do so with the expectation that they will make every attempt to make a soap for the challenge. Writing about your experience in the challenge is encouraged. By doing so, each participant has a better knowledge of your process when voting. We do understand that sometimes things come up in our lives and throw our plans out of whack, however signing up with no intent to participate and only to vote is not in the spirit of the challenges and is not allowed.

8. Please add your name to the sign-up list if you wish to participate (you don’t have to enter a soap at the end if you don’t feel happy with what you have produced), but please do post your experiences in the main Challenge thread and be prepared to be encouraged to continue trying.

9. Constructive criticism is welcomed, but please keep your comments polite.

* * * *

  • Competition entries must be uploaded to the separate entry thread before the closing date.
  • The entry thread will open on March 22, 2021 at 4:00 pm GMT (Please follow the challenge specific rules as to what you need to enter).
  • After the closing date on March 28, 2021 at 4:00 pm GMT the winning entry will be chosen using Survey Monkey. Voting will be open from March 28-30, 2021 and the winner will be announced soon thereafter and no later than on March 31, 2021. There is no prize attached to this challenge.
  • If you fail to make the challenge deadline, you are still welcome to upload pictures of your soap onto the thread, but your entry will not be eligible for voting. We always love to see anything you have created.
  • Even though there is no prize, this is still a competition. If your entry is deemed not to fulfill the general rules or the rules specific to the challenge in any way, then you will be given the opportunity to amend your entry. If this is not possible, your entry will not be included in the voting.
  • All the challenge mods reserve the right to have the final say on whether a soap is eligible for voting.
* * * *
SPECIFIC RULES FOR THE MARCH 2021 CHALLENGE

1. You will make your soap using the Air Blow Technique aka Dutch Pour Technique aka Wind Blow Technique. This technique requires air to be blown over the surface of wet soap to create a design on the surface of the soap. It is based on the Acyrlic Painting technique known as the Dutch Pour.

2. A slab mold is required for this challenge, the size however, can be based on the tools you plan to use to blow the air for your design. If you use a larger tool, such as a hair blow dryer, a larger mold works best. If you use a straw, a small size slab mold will work. Air-blowing tools that may be used include but are not necessarily limited to: Hair dryer (on low or cool); Straw; Small Air Brush (not industrial size); Your mouth; Ear Syringe Bulb; Mouth Atomizer. I will provide a links to some such tools as reference. If you have another tool on-hand that would serve the same purpose, AND be gentle enough to be used safely for this design, please give it a try and share your experience with given tools.

3. You must use at least 3 colors, PLUS a background color of either white or uncolored soap batter, OR black.

4. As shown in the sample videos, a base soap is made and allowed to set up, which becomes your canvas upon which you will pour and create your design. You are allowed to use a previously made soap as your base upon which you pour the pallette to create the Air Blow design. Or you may create a new soap as your base, using any design of your choice, including plain soap. The base soap may or may not be coordinated with the surface design, as you choose.

5. Three entry photos will be required: 1 pre-cut entry, which shows the slab prior to the cut, and at least 1 after the cut photo, with at least one or more bars. And finally, one photo showing the tools you used to create the surface design (air blowing tool(s), etc. if others were used.

HELPFUL TIPS:

1. Choose your air-blowing tool(s) and work surface with safety in mind. Remember you will be blowing on the surface of raw soap. Wear appropriate PPE for this project.

2. Protect surfaces behind the area toward which you will be blowing the soap. Keep others away while doing this technique (people & animals.)

3. Try a practice run with your chosen tool and water or other safe liquid (thin or thicker liquid) to see how much power the wind blow technique creates.

4. Make sure your base soap (the canvas) is firmly set up prior to starting to create your design palette.

5. Pour your base color (white or black) as shown in the videos. (See videos for technique; the painting videos in particular show this technique.)

6. Pour your colors in a pattern of your choosing to create the design of your choosing. (See videos for possible methods for pouring the color patterns.)

7. Carefully blow air on the surface of the soap at an angle close to the surface, to create your design. Short gentle bursts of low air flow are best, both for safety and for design. Sweeping the air-blowing tool in the direction you want your design to flow.

8. If you choose, you may use a palette knife to help with the direction of your design, then blow on the surface. You may also use more than one blowing tool.

9. Have fun, and good luck!

* * * *



Dutch Pour painting technique from which this technique is inspired

Here are some Dutch Pour Painting technique videos to use as reference to where this air-blow technique came from. You can speed up the replay to double time by going to setting and choosing playback speed.

Dutch Pour painting technique Artist: Amanda's Designs:

Dutch Pour painting technique using heat gun (I do not suggest this for soap), blow dryer, artist's mouth, tongue depresser (in place of palette knife) Artist: Tammy Anderson:

Dutch Pour painting technique using blow dryer, palette knife and blowing directly on the paint with the artist's own mouth (be careful of the hair if you do this.) Artist: Olga Soby:


Soap Videos using the Air Blow Technique aka Dutch Pour Technique aka Wind Blow Technique

Carnaby Street by Vicki Frost (start at 8:00)

Impressionist Fish by Grace E Holloway (start at 5:50) use of small blower
 
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Soap Videos using the Air Blow Technique aka Dutch Pour Technique aka Wind Blow Technique continued:

Persian Poetry by Vicki Frost (start at 3:00) use of hair dryer:

Black Sea Dutch Pour by Stephanie Graham:



Additional Resources & Instruction:

BLOG POSTS & E-BOOK

Dutch Pour Technique (painting) blog post (includes link to video): Acrylic Pour

E-Book link (From Grace to You): Blowing on Soap to Make "Aloha" Flowers with Cold Process Soap
 
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PHOTOS of some examples of Soap made using the
Air Blow Technique aka Dutch Pour Technique aka Wind Blow Technique


Impressionist Fish by Grace E. Holloway
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Black Sea Dutch Pour by Stephanie Graham
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Persian Poetry by Vicki Frost (Black Cat Blues)
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I believe this technique was first introduced to the SMF forum in this thread back in 2017, however, more recently I first noticed the technique in painting videos and thought to myself, 'what fun to try this with soap.' Low and behold, when I started looking to see if anyone had actually done it, I found the thread here as well as several others. Then of course, I realized I had already seen it in soap in many of the Black Cat Blues (Vicki Frost) and From Grace to You (Grace Holloway) videos and had totally forgotten I had already seen this in soap, and it just had not registered! In fact it was also used in one of Amy Warden's Soap Challenge Club back in July 2017, which I totally missed since I was still learning the basics at that time.
 
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Sign up list:

(Please copy & Paste, add your name along with the next appropriate number.)

1. The_Phoenix - I have a feeling my family won't see much of me for the next 26 days.
2. KimW - Thank you for hosting, Earlene! Hope your visit with MIL is pleasant.
 
Wow, that is mind-blowing! (No pun intended 😄 )
I'm not eligible to take part, but would anyone mind if I play along at home? I have a serious itch to get my air compressor involved in this...

Edit to add a question after re-reading, would an air compressor count as industrial? If I did it outside and took all necessary precautions do you think it would work?
 
Wow, that is mind-blowing! (No pun intended 😄 )
I'm not eligible to take part, but would anyone mind if I play along at home? I have a serious itch to get my air compressor involved in this...
Absolutely!

Edit to add a question after re-reading, would an air compressor count as industrial? If I did it outside and took all necessary precautions do you think it would work?

If the air compressor you have is anything like my husband's air compressor in our garage, I would not use it on a project like this.

I suggest you do what I suggested in the Helpful Tips section #3 and see how strong it is. My husband cleans stains off our concrete driveway and even hard of hearing that I am, I can hear the force with which the spray creates when it hits the concrete (with the doors all closed and not wearing my hearing aids.)
 
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1. The_Phoenix - I have a feeling my family won't see much of me for the next 26 days.
2. KimW - Thank you for hosting, Earlene! Hope your visit with MIL is pleasant.
3. AMD - hopefully I don't blow this (oh, wait... that's the opposite of what I need to do...)
 
I've been looking at the videos and if I could ask a point of clarification on the rules - is tilting the slab, either during the pour, or afterwards to encourage the batter to move in a different direction, allowed?

Also is it ok to add further enhancements (like the black sea 'foam') or should it be strictly the challenge technique?
 
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1. The_Phoenix - I have a feeling my family won't see much of me for the next 26 days.
2. KimW - Thank you for hosting, Earlene! Hope your visit with MIL is pleasant.
3. AMD - hopefully I don't blow this (oh, wait... that's the opposite of what I need to do...)
4. glendam - this sounds intriguing and I need an excuse to make more soap
 
Well I haven't made soap for aaaaaages, life getting in the way as it does. This is so out of the box though, I may have to try to find some time ...

Can we use a normal loaf mould but cut it as per a slab?
 
I'm getting really psyched for this, have been watching the videos and have a vision for what I'd like to do - I wonder if there's any chance of getting something like what's in my head?

I think I'll pour a couple of small slabs this afternoon to practice on. Really hoping we'll be allowed some small embeds for the idea I'm thinking of, but I reckon I can make it work without if needs be. One thing which struck me while watching the paint versions of the videos is the idea to use mica dispersed in oil alongside the coloured soap; I presume that would be acceptable? I think it would make the effect closer to what they're achieving with paint.

The husband is on board also, which means I'll be able to use the empty office which is in the process of being renovated. Luckily he's been watching Dexter lately so he's very supportive of me making a 'kill room' for containment 🤣
 
1. The_Phoenix - I have a feeling my family won't see much of me for the next 26 days.
2. KimW - Thank you for hosting, Earlene! Hope your visit with MIL is pleasant.
3. AMD - hopefully I don't blow this (oh, wait... that's the opposite of what I need to do...)
4. glendam - this sounds intriguing and I need an excuse to make more soap
5. Mobjack Bay - YES, YES, YES!!!
 
I will try to get the rest of the questions answered. First the mold choice from GemstonePony & Primrose:

In fact, I did think of that when writing the rules but I opted out of allowing that for 2 reasons:

1. I suspect it would not work as well given the technique, although I didn't try it myself, and

2. I was being lazy and didn't want to take the time to describe how to cut soap made in a regular mold as if cutting soap from a slab mold, although I have done that in the past.

But I chose to go with only specifying a slab mold because it gives the more surface space for this design technique.

So the answer is 'No, unless you just want to do it as a test run to see if it will work. But not as an entry soap.'

IF you don't have a slab mold, they are easily made. My very first slab mold was a boot box (cardboard/paperboard), which I lined with freezer paper. It worked exceptionally well. Notice that Stephanie Graham's slab mold is home-made as well as small, so the size of the slab mold does not have to be huge.

@earlene Can I use a wide (regular instead of T&S) loaf mold as a slab mold?
Can we use a normal loaf mould but cut it as per a slab?
Regarding the specific challenge, I've been looking at the videos and if I could ask a point of clarification on the rules - is tilting the slab, either during the pour, or afterwards to encourage the batter to move in a different direction, allowed?

Also is it ok to add further enhancements (like the black sea 'foam') or should it be strictly the challenge technique?

Yes, tilting the soap is fine. I showed the Dutch Pour painting videos before the soapmaking videos because this is a melding of artistic media techniques, that of painting and of soapmaking and as far as I can ascertain, it came to us inspired by the artistry of painters. And obviously tilting the canvas is used in the Dutch Pour painting technique. You'll notice the use of the palette knife by one artist and a tongue depressor by another is really just another way of moving the paint in another direction, so although I did not mention tilting, I felt it was implied by my choice of videos.

As for further enhancements, for the sake of ease of seeing the air-blown design, please limit the use of additional enhancements to one or none. In the case of Stephanie Graham's Black Sea, my first thought was that the salt would #1 be too scratchy on soap (always my first concern when it comes to soap) and #2 detract from the design. BUT I do believe in her case, the salt does lend to the theme in that it creates a sort of foamy surface to the sea without detracting from the design. However, anything more would have done. In any case, I would suggest adding no more than one enhancement, or none at all.

I'm getting really psyched for this, have been watching the videos and have a vision for what I'd like to do - I wonder if there's any chance of getting something like what's in my head?

I think I'll pour a couple of small slabs this afternoon to practice on. Really hoping we'll be allowed some small embeds for the idea I'm thinking of, but I reckon I can make it work without if needs be. One thing which struck me while watching the paint versions of the videos is the idea to use mica dispersed in oil alongside the coloured soap; I presume that would be acceptable? I think it would make the effect closer to what they're achieving with paint.

The husband is on board also, which means I'll be able to use the empty office which is in the process of being renovated. Luckily he's been watching Dexter lately so he's very supportive of me making a 'kill room' for containment 🤣

As I mentioned above before you posted this additional question, one enhancement (small embeds would be counted as one) as long as they don't detract from the air-blown design, would be acceptable.

Oh, I can just see the Dexter-style plastic taped up around your office-in-renovation kill-room style. Maybe you can post a photo of your work space for a laugh.
 
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1. The_Phoenix - I have a feeling my family won't see much of me for the next 26 days.
2. KimW - Thank you for hosting, Earlene! Hope your visit with MIL is pleasant.
3. AMD - hopefully I don't blow this (oh, wait... that's the opposite of what I need to do...)
4. glendam - this sounds intriguing and I need an excuse to make more soap
5. Mobjack Bay - YES, YES, YES!!!
6. bookreader451 - Always willing to try something new.
 

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