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.