More Alcohol Inks

Other things, including house and cat sitting at my son's, have eclipsed my resolve to blog more. In my studio, I have several little experimental paintings using alcohol inks on old Yupo watercolor scrapes. The one featured here turned into a landscape with a blue sun. I added a few birds with a Dewert Inktense pencil. I hope that I will get back to doing more of these soon.

I have also been experimenting with children's blow pens that I bought for my grandchildren to use when they visited. They lost interest in them so I decided to use them instead of throwing them away. They really require a lot of breath to make them work. It may because they are old and the ink is low.

In the mean time, I am working on an idea for a piece to go over my bead. It has to be lightweight, as I do not want it to fall on my head! I think I will do something on foam core board and not frame it. 

Funny thing not long ago I could not get interested in doing anything, now I have too many irons in the fire! Go figure. Mood swings?

Yupo Revision

Cropping more old Yupo watercolor paintings into 6"x 6" pieces, I chose this piece to play with. I did not use much alcohol ink this time because I was intrigued with the colors and textures going on in the existing watercolor paint. I chose graphite pencil along with a white gel pen for the line work. 

Fonts in paintings have always fascinated me. They add contrast and bit of mystery, like a possible code. I have a rubber stamp of the word 'escape' and it seemed very descriptive of this little painting. Some stencil work and I called this one finished.

Yupo, Ink, and Watercolor Experiment

Since I am just exploring alcohol inks I have been using Yupo watercolor paintings that did not work out for my painting surface. Most of the watercolor paint, if it is not a staining color, can be wiped off with water, providing a clean white surface to paint on. This time I decided to leave some of the watercolor paint to see how the alcohol inks would react. They did not like one another. Maybe because the watercolor was dry, the alcohol did not have any effect on the watercolor. The inks lost some of its spreading ability and without the smooth white surface and they lost some of their glow. However, I fine the contrast rather interesting, providing a challenge to resolve.

I wanted to add some fine line work so I chose a white gel pen. The big mistake I made was not making sure the surface was completely dry. The inks clogged up my new pen. I have tried every known way to clean it, but instead I just killed it! I also notice the dye bleeds through the white gel ink, to the point that the white lines may completely disappear in time.

Derwent Inktense colored pencils are just the thing to enhance the inks. When you dip them in water, they are as intense as the inks!

Unlike the first alcohol ink paintings in my previous post where I just dropped the inks and did a little wipe out, this one was a challenge! I cannot believe the amount of time I spent painting this little piece, but it was lots of fun. Now to see what else I can do with these inks.

Yupo and Alcohol Inks

After a long period of being uninspired to do anything but watch videos on YouTube, I found some videos on alcohol inks. I bought a little set of three earlier this spring, but never played with them. In desperation to do something creative, even if it was just experimenting, I cut up some small pieces of Yupo and started playing. What fun! I do not know where this will lead or how long the fascination will last, but the important thing is I am in my studio again and creating!

The only caveats are alcohol inks are not for anyone with breathing or alcohol problems. The fumes will get to you after awhile. Also wearing vinyl gloves and protective clothing is a must. These inks stain everything!

Embrace the Shake

The illustration class I am taking at The Artist's Quarters  has  become a bit challenging for me.

I really do not have the control over the Wacom5 tablet pen for digital drawing as I do with a real

pencil. As a result I have become very frustrated and have not progressed very far with the lessons.

My lingering creative lull has not helped. Instead of creating I have just spent my spare time, when

I am not out looking for the perfect mattress, watching online videos. My son found this video and I

thought it would be a great one to share. I really enjoyed how this artist embraced his handicap and

kept on creating! Oh, the joys of being young and determined! I could use some of that in my old age.

Creative Lull

Mucha's lovely illustration really reflects how I have been feeling lately. I have been taking an online illustration class at Tim Shelbourne'sThe Artists' Quarters  and as much as I love what Tim is teaching, I can't seem to get my creative juices flowing. These creative lull spells are not uncommon for me, but it seems lately they are becoming more frequent. Recent events haven't helped.

Atlanta had a couple of week of damaging storms. Our neighborhood looked like a small tornado hit it with trees downed everywhere and roofs destroyed. Fortunately, I had a large tree by my house removed earlier in the year so I was spared any damage. My son and daughter's pet grooming and kennel business was flooded. No animals were hurt, but he has been forced to close down the business for repairs. Of course the insurance company and bank are dragging their feet while my son and contract groomers are losing tens of thousands of dollars in business! 

With temperature rising now that summer is here, I prefer to be in my cool basement studio. Since my large computer, which is required to do digital art, is not in the basement, hopefully I will get back to non-digital creating. All I need now is for my son to get back on his feet and a good mattress so I can get a decent night's sleep. However, that is another story.