Add a Little Yellow!

I decided that my 'reef' was all too much the same colour value, so I went back in with some  bright yellow ink, which I think adds a bit more zing to it. I think that there are enough darks already.

Back to the Reef.

Here I'm working into the little alcohol ink art which looked like a rocky coral reef to me. You can still see the remains of the pink flowers in the water area, one of which I have turned into 2 little fish.
(If you remember, I painted over a failed garden scene which contained the pink flowers)

A Few More Daisies!

                                                               A single pale cream.

                                       Another single variety with a deeply coloured centre.

 Moving into the loosely named African daisies with broad leaves, this one is a dark maroon colour.

                                    Another African daisy, pale mauve with a very dark centre.

 Back to the simple single 'Marguerite' variety of daisy, this one ranges across the pink spectrum.

                                         Another African daisy in a gorgeous apricot colour.

Spring Daisies.

When I set out to photograph the daisies in my garden, I had no idea that I had such a variety of different colours and forms, and this is just from the back garden.

                                  A small multi-petal pink flower with fine feathery leaves.

                                A similar variety only in a deeper pink with coarser leaves.

                          A very simple daisy which comes out pale in colour and deepens with age.

                                A very large multi-petal variety with equally large leaves.

                                                           An almost red simple daisy.

                                    A stunning white form that is only just coming into bloom.

Patterns & Textures.

 Walking around the Botanic gardens in the sunshine looking for pattern and texture was very enjoyable. I just love the way the leaves on this palm cross over each other, showing different negative spaces.

                            This one is a little different with the fronds almost horizontal.

    These are the hanging leaves of a beautiful Kashmir Cyprus, a lovely blue green colour.

   It was early enough in the morning for there to still be some dew on this Lamb's Tongue leaf.

Not only has this Aloe got some nice white spines on the leaves, but if you look closely the leaves are also mottled with blue and green.

Yellow Camellia ?

 Until today I had never heard of a yellow camellia, but there it was in all it's glory in the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.

  Not only are the flowers just beautiful, but the leaves are large, glossy and the veins deeply incised.

         Judging by this fruit from last season, they are very large too. What a gorgeous plant!

Re-Working.

 I decided to cut the failed garden scene into two pieces and work into each one separately. They are very similar of course, but so far I prefer the lower version. They're not finished, but so far so good.

I see a rocky coral reef below the sea in this one above. If you look closely you can just see one of the pink flowers from the previous effort. I can't wait to start working into this one with alcohol ink pens !

Dismal Failure !

Having decided that this piece of alcohol ink art is a dismal failure, I have wiped off as much ink as will come off with blending solution and rather than waste the Yupo paper which is expensive, I will try working over the residue. I think what I've learned from this experiment is that firstly, alcohol ink over masking fluid does work, but that the image should be simple. Next, that I should explore the very special effects that you can get with alcohol ink, not try to use it in place of watercolour or any other 'normal'  painting media. Still, it was fun!

Just Playing.

 I first sprayed blending solution all over the paper and then dropped inks randomly over the masking fluid painted stamped images. I then held the paper up for the inks to run down to the lower edge of the page.

 The masking fluid rubbed off in parts, but took most of the stamped colour away too.The flowers are a weird pink colour now and I can see where I missed painting the masking fluid on parts of the plants.

 A few stamped grasses makes the lower edge look less stark, and a few attempts work into the background with more drops of alcohol.

The plants look better with some green from alcohol pens and some 'autumn' colour tapped onto the swathes of yellow. Goodness knows where this is heading, if anywhere,  but it's fun playing!

Experimenting.

 Following on from the reasonably successful daisy using the old masking fluid and alcohol inks, I decided to experiment a little further. Using my own hand carved stamps I stamped onto the Yupo paper with some of my foliage stamps. I wasn't sure if the very shiny surface of the paper would take the stamp dye inks, but it did.

 Just a few random flowers, again using my hand carved stamps. These are all carved from 'SoftCut' rather than from lino, which I find hard to carve into small individual objects.

I then painted over the flowers and leaves with the masking fluid, which lifted the colour quite a bit.
I'm not worried by this, as I expect to use alcohol inks to colour the flowers and leaves after I have removed the dried masking fluid.

It Works!

 In the picture above I have started to rub away the masking fluid that I painted over my daisy drawing.  Even the thick lumpy fluid is rubbing away nicely, somewhat to my surprise!

 All gone and I really like the slightly ragged appearance of the flower heads. I'm also very happy with the background colour too.

 While painting the leaves green with alcohol ink I managed to deposit a drop on the background to the left of the flowers. I tried blending it in, but it looked awful, so I tapped a piece of felt over the area onto which I had dropped a tiny bit of ink, and ended up liking the mottled result.

 I painted the flowers with the lightest of pink/beige colour with a little pale green at the base of the petals and tiny dots of colour for the centres. I added the moth, one of my hand carved stamps, but I'm not sure that I really like it there.

 I thought that I had masked off the margins, but the ink seeped under the blue tape unfortunately.

I tapped the felt pad with lime green ink on it over the main white areas, and the result isn't too bad.
This is a technique which I hope to explore some more before too long, ancient masking fluid still works!

Very Old Masking Fluid.

Regular followers of this Blog will know that each month a flower is chosen by one of the members of a textile art group that I belong to. We have had many such challenges over the 20 odd years of our collaboration, but this time I decided that I wouldn't work the flowers in textiles, but explore various forms of printing instead. This month's flower is a daisy, and I thought that since I'm playing with alcohol inks at present I'd use that media for the daisy challenge. Here I've drawn 3 flowers and filled them in with masking fluid, hoping to paint the background with alcohol inks, rub off the masking fluid and go back in to colour the daisies. I hadn't allowed for the fact that my masking fluid is over 20 years old, and I didn't read the label that tells me I should shake the bottle first ! I now have very thick lumpy masking fluid filled flowers. Since it is on Yupo paper I might have an even chance of removing the masking fluid, I hope.

Another Play.

 Using alcohol inks again, I tried another technique that I seen recently. Wetting the Yupo paper with a blending solution of isopropyl alcohol and glycerine, I then dropped various shades of blue and turquoise onto the wet areas. They ran and blended as I had hoped, so I then added a few drops of terra cotta and orange ink to add contrast. Last I used a new bottle of silver ink and once I had unblocked the nozzle, it came out in a rush and I ended up with a large blob in the middle and a smaller one below. I can live with the large blob, but I really don't like the small one!

This is a detail that I really like of the larger piece above. See if you can spot where it is in the photo.

Fun, Fun, Fun!

 These pieces of alcohol art are all experimentation, just to see how I can manipulate the inks and what results to expect. I love the contrast between the very pale green/blue and the darker edge in the large area on the right.

                                                        Nothing here really excites me!

                 In this one, the only areas that I like are the mottled colours at the upper left edge.

The lower left is interesting, but over all it is just odd bits & pieces. Oh well, time to try something really different next time.

Different Technique.

Here is the start of some more experimentation with alcohol inks, this time daubing colour as well as the dropping that I tried earlier. This technique certainly produces a more random spread of colour, but until I add details with the pens, I'm not sure that I'm going to like it !

A Country Weekend.

 On a glorious sunny Spring morning we came across this flock of sheep in a paddock. We have walked through this area many, many times over the past 18 years, but this group of sheep are totally different to all the others, they aren't frightened of us or the dog.

 I never realised that sheep have beautiful lips, and close up you can see just how lovely their lips are!

 After a very dry winter it's lovely to see that there is still some water in our creek on this Spring Day.

            It must definitely be Spring as the daffodils are in flower, even on this rocky creek edge.