white ink – Mixy's Art Blog

never say never (ever)

If there’s one thing that will motivate me into action, it’s being told that I can’t do something. Even (or especially) when the person doing the telling is me.

In reaction to a phrase in my last post “When space limits me to work on just one project at time…” Uha, really? I went on “… working within the parameters of my living/painting space, I have to exercise a little more self discipline…” I have to what? Says who??

editDSC_3037 — ink drips on handmade paper

Working on small (8″ x 10″ and smaller … often scraps) scale, there’s really no excuse, there’s no ‘no space’ that can’t be remedied with a small amount of putting stuff away!

editDSC_3035 — Opaque white ink dropped into puddles of transparent colored inks, left to flow.

Settled with a selection of old doodles on watercolor paper, some bottles of ink and water; and the giddy enthusiasm of new colors, I soon had a small dripping/drying/oozing/dribbling production line set up.

Aided greatly by the way I work – splashy and messy – no harm can come from cross contamination and minor spillages.

In fact, I ended up using the least soggy works to mop up some of the more puddly over waterings

editDSC_3032 — drips of ink, then water, then ink…etc, wet on wet + wet on dry

Release from these self imposed boundaries!

editDSC_3025 — inks dripped onto wet threads draws up the pigment leaving outlines. Highlighted with stitching (recycling that thread!)

Moments in the process

There is often a stage in the process where I look at the page and think WTF? What is going on? It might fly off on a tanget, or it might develop recognizably from here. But until it does, I have no way of telling…

Pushing on from this point gets easier every time. Like this…

Beginning the page with Black Gesso, some white writing and doodling. Tissue paper for texture.

Building up the shapes with slices of dyed envelopes

And some splashing – I used Dr Martin’s Bombay inks and some dilute acrylic paints.

And left to dry…

…to doodle on…

…and on…

to this! 😀

day of the ephemeral dragon

When I was doing the paper dying thing I was using future pages of sketchbook to catch the drips.

Today this page came round. Pleasant in itself, but that was then. The nature of this is to be ephemeral, fleeting, evolving. This page belongs to today: time to change.

Skipping over the stages I forgot to photograph… then came the inky bit

What’s with white ink, then? I know, like dilute white paint. Just concept of ‘white ink’ doesn’t sit straight in my head. Anyways, white ink can be a bit milky, but dripping onto wet colored ink gives this effect. Can’t always guarantee inky splodge is dragon shaped 😉

The dragonyness left as he dried. But I think the idea of the shape got stuck in my head as I remembered I hadn’t done any cut outs for a while…

Back with the metaphors this book throws up: Y’know when the events of one day echo and reverberate, the memory creeps into the next few days? Such will be the next few pages!