2LO Texture-making Class : Alcohol Inks

 

 

I am enjoying this lesson from Denise Love's 2 Lil Owls Texture-making Class, playing with the alcohol inks.  I'd tried this a few months ago and was not impressed -- turns out the secret is in the Yupo paper.  I was using some photo paper that seemed shiny enough, but it gave disappointing results --exactly like Denise showed in the video when she said not to bother purchasing the regular photo paper.  Yupo makes the difference!

For the most part, these are straight from the scanner.  I haven't done any post-production tinkering with these.   No need!

You could call these Living Inks as they move and develop and become something else in the course of the making.  You just keep playing until you have something you like ...   It reminds me a lot of Citrasolving a National Geographic magazine.  Makes me wonder if alcohol spilled on those pages would also melt the NG ink?  Anyone tried it?

It also makes me wonder if the Hubble Telescope really did send back all those pictures from Space, or if it was just someone at NASA playing with alcohol inks? [Wink!]

Fair warning : This is a very long post heavy with texture images.  If that's not your thing, bale out now!  For the Texture Lovers out there, enjoy the feast for the eyes! :

 

 This is actually the first one I did with some homemade alcohol + Rit Dye.  Not as brilliant as the Ranger Adirondack Inks, but still kind of cool in an old world map kind-of-way.

 

 Wonderful results almost every time.  If you don't like what you see, you just play a little longer until you do!  There were a few that wound up in the re-do pile to be revisited another day.

2LO Texture-making Class : Acrylics

Painted Acrylic Textures

The large image is the one that I actually painted.  

The other 2 versions I manipulated in Picassa with various settings.

It's pretty amazing how many looks you can get out of a single original image.

This one turned out to be my favorite from this set.

Continuing with lessons from 2 Lil Owls Texture-Making class with Denise Love.  This lesson focused on Acrylics.   It's a very different medium, compared to the watercolors.  The acrylic paint is "sticky" in comparison.  I kept feeling like I was wasting the paint when I went to wash the brushes.  I wasn't all that impressed -- until I digitized these textures!  I learned to use my scanner for this lesson, too. 

Here's another one.  

The original didn't come out looking like much to write home about (the large one) ...  

But as soon as I tweaked it a bit, it's true beauty came out in a light blue and a sepia version.  

You can really see the brush strokes after tweaking.

Again, it's pretty amazing what a few simple adjustments can do to change the look of a texture.

The original is on the left--as painted.

I squeezed 4 looks out of this one texture.  

The original is the dark blue square in the upper left quadrant.

There were a few more, but these were the best in the set.

2LO Texture-Making Class Lesson 4 : Waterlogged

I'm continuing on with 2 Lil' Owls Texture-Making Class.  Real paper -- real paints -- real textures.  Just look at all these gorgeous colors!

This technique kind of reminded me of Ann Johnston's color by accident, where you through all your leftover dye into a vase with your fabric, and let it seep in where it likes.  It's really pretty amazing that the colors stay distinct and don't just turn into mud as you might expect.

Basically, you throw the color at the paper until it's good and wet, then you dry it -- and things come out surprisingly muted and nicely blended. 

I LOVE this technique!

  

This is how it looked on the drawing board while it was still wet.  Pretty muddy -- but by the time it dried, it turned into this :

 

This one with the browns and golds and grays came out the prettiest of the whole set!  This is one I think I could actually use layered into a photo--as is!

 I love this one, too!

I've been aching all week to do more of these ...  but work and other commitments have kept me from the studio.  Now I can take more time to play with color and light and water!