Let’s Play with India Ink!

Great time this past weekend with family. Good times being together. Christmas and celebrated Dad’s  75th birthday. All in all it was a great long weekend. It is getting to be the time of year where I like to reflect on the triumphs and challenges from the last year. A time to do some introspective on where I am and where it is I am headed. All in all 2105 was a good year. Now it didn’t come without it’s challenges but I am ready to see it go and am looking forward to a new year. Many years ago I gave up the tradition of making New Year resolutions. They always seemed kind of pointless. They were usually made on impulse without a plan to implement the resolution. The resolution was usually abandoned within the first month of the year. Instead, I like to reflect on where I have come over the last year and look at the areas in my life that I want to improve. This introspective approach seems to serve me best. This time last year, I was in a place where I was ready to reconnect with my creative side. I am glad to say that I think I have been able to do that over the past year. I think I even surpassed what I had intended. I have found time for regular time in art studio. It feeds me, regenerates me, and gives me a much better sense of well-being.

The last day and half we’ve had a winter storm and it gave me an excuse to retreat to the art studio. Like I need an excuse, right?!?! I have been exploring ink and water a little more. The first experiment was with washes from colored india ink pigments. I am continuing to use a masking technique with rubber cement. I really like the rubber cement for masking. It is inexpensive and very easy to work with, just make sure to be in a ventilated space. I liked using the washes. In this piece, the masking areas were created with a little more intention and composition than in previous experiments. Representative organic shapes were masked out with the rubber cement.

The next series I used the pure india ink pigments instead of creating a wash with them. With these pieces the rubber cement masking was much more random than the first piece.  Using these as pure pigments created pieces with very vibrant colors.

The last technique used the pure india ink pigments with the rubber cement masking. Salt was then used as an additive after the placement of all the pigments. The salt absorbs the liquid from the inks. The effect of the salt varies based on how much water in on the paper when adding the salt.

I enjoyed all these techniques and each one has it’s place depending on the look that is trying to be achieved for a particular project. I liked the results from the second technique best. I like the vibrant colors that the pure pigments produce. Although the third technique is very similar, the salt additive seems to dilute the purity of the ink pigments.