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.

Textures

While waiting for the delivery of some more alcohol inks I started browsing through my photos for some art ideas. These random textures caught my eye, so I thought that I might share a few of them.

   Above is a pattern formed by ice on some leaves resulting in some amazingly regular ridges.

 Something caught and killed this bird or found it dead, leaving behind these beautifully patterned wing feathers. More detail can be seen by clicking on the image..

                                             More ice patterns on the window of my car.

                       A bundle of protective plastic fencing left behind by some workmen.

                                                          Some really heavy duty chains.

                                  Lastly some rusting metal underneath the surface skin.

Further Ink Play.

 It's very therapeutic this playing with alcohol inks! One can keep fiddling away indefinitely I think, or at least until the paper is absolutely full and saturated.

 Here is a detail of the piece shown above. I really like parts of it, but I'm not sure about the thing as a whole.

Another section in which I inadvertently changed the orientation by mistake for the photo. It's the upper left hand corner rotated a quarter turn to the left.

Alcohol Inks

I've long admired the art work that people produce using alcohol inks, and at long last I've got started on the technique myself. I now admire the artists using this medium even more, as it's much more difficult than I thought to produce anything remotely 'artistic'!

 

                                                                     My first attempt.

 It's quite mesmerising watching the inks travel on the non porous paper, blending and changing as they move.

This is a portion of a much larger piece that I'm fiddling around with, outlining in white ink and seeing what happens when I go back into the various colours with alcohol ink pens. It's fascinating !