No, I have not taken up drinking and going to try to persuade you too…lol… this is all t about using inks in art journaling.
This is one of my favorite mediums. Inks can be blown, splattered, diluted, and daubed with sponges. You can roll it, paint it with a brush, mist it. You can get inks at dollar stores, at places like staples, and Walmarts, etc. There are fountain pens, there are elegant writers, there are the glass/crystal dip pens, there are sumi brushes… there is truly no end to how inks can be used. And, there is no end to what inks can be used ON. Many artists use YUPO waterproof paper that is most used with inks, but it works amazing on newsprint and any other porous papers. Experimenting with alcohol inks is much fun.
Mixed Media paper can easily be used and resists ink soaking in too quickly, as well, as an alternative. And you can use ink pads directly on your substrate, or use eyedroppers, Q-Tips, or you can use stamps, of course. You can spray over items, even household items like combs, like scissors, land things from nature. You can spray through doilies, and there are myriads of ways you, alone, will discover.
An art journal is a visual diary of sorts. In it, you explore ideas, ways of making marks, materials, etc. Some of us have an art journal (s) dedicated to the different mediums and will have found or made an ink art journal. They are typically made of paper that is less absorbent, like Yupo, and even the back side of photo papers. But there is such fun in experimenting and happy accidents happen. I love a challenge or problem to solve.
There are thousands of videos out there that show how to use each kind and sampling papers and etc., but I truly do not want to reinvent the wheel and I am a proponent of jumping in and giving it a go on my own to begin with. So. I am using my art journal for this month and it is old book paper in the story book. It will be very absorbent.
HINT: with mixed media it is all about layers and layers and more layers, so your first layer will never be your only layer. It happens that you may lose some, if not all, of one layer or another, but somewhere in it all, the beauty of each layer shows through somewhere.
I have started by stamping some ink pad marks all over the page. Next, I will spray some water on the paper and drop drops of ink and blow that with a straw.
I daubed the page a bit dry of the pools of water and I let it dry then used a spray... I just grabbed any of the colors so I am not sure what I am going to end up with… but I will have fun fixing it afterwards.
So, I stamped, blew, painted, sprayed and I did not like it so then I sprayed water on again and did an indigo ink and let it dribble down from the top. This is an awesome technique and I hear /see most of the artists call this “drippage”. I blotted with a paper towel to get some imprints. I then let it dry really well.
I had a piece of gunny sacking and added it, then put some die cut blossoms over top and drew in leaves and stems. Next, I colored in the blossoms with felt pens.
Adding embellishments is really a way to pique interest in / on a page.
Hint: A great resource for embellishment ideas https://www.pinterest.pt/gikerr68/embellishments/
Keep remembering that an art journal can be anything you want it to be, can have you use expensive materials and mediums, can be all about pen drawings only, can be works of fine art, or not. It can be a place where you are experimenting and honing your artistic skills. It is a place to simply express your deep feelings. It can be a place where you solve problems that teach you life lessons through artistic expression. Let your art journal be the truest friend you ever had, a place to express, sometimes, the inexpressible and will never give away your deepest secret feelings.
****Experiment with using 91% alcohol (at your local pharmacy) and alcohol inks. You can even make your own inks with used up felt pens. More later on this but using Wet Ones and the alcohol can do amazing things with inks.
©Carol Desjarlais 4.12.21
No comments:
Post a Comment