We interrupt this program for alcohol

So naturally the only thing to do when you have multiple large projects with deadlines getting nearer every minute is to get completely distracted by things that have nothing to do with them.

At a meeting of the Red River Watercolor Society this week I made the acquaintance of a very talented artist named Sabra (check out her work. It’s lovely!). She invited me to her home yesterday to learn about and play with alcohol inks, which are very vibrant inks worked with alcohol to give some amazingly diverse patterns, shapes, and forms. THEY ARE SO FUN. If you have seen some of my mixed media pieces, you know I really love the vibrant color and fluidity of inks. These definitely have that in spades! And it is a blast to see what happens when you take a variety of different tools to them for different effects.

I can’t see myself giving up any of my other art endeavors for them, but I definitely need to invest and play.

Here is the sample piece where I tried all the techniques I could on top of each other just to see what happened. It isn’t even “art” and it still came out fun.

This is playing with ink and a bottle of canned air. Swapping precision for surprise:

And here are the two that I did with intent. Don’t they seem rather under-watery?

So now I am excited, and have LOTS of ideas. So to keep myself on track I am not letting myself buy any new supplies until after I have my deadlines met. Then they can be a reward for being a successful adult, and then we will see if any of the thoughts popping around in my brain turn out well enough to share!