Ink paintings experiment.

Today I decided to try something different as I've been disappointed with the last few acrylic paintings.  I've used F&W Iridescent Inks.  Firstly I put on a wash of the gold ink which was diluted with just a little water.  When this was dry I drew the roses and painted over them with different inks

 

These roses were drawn with white ink.

 

 

.

The roses in this picture were painted in iridescent copper ink, with the wording added in the original gold ink.

 

 

 

I wanted to see how the ink behaved on paper and how much you could dilute the ink and still get the lovely iridescent appearance.  They were quite simple to do.  Now I have experimented with these small paintings I can incorporate the ink in other mixed media work.

Roses again.

Roses again!  But as this is quite probably our last summer here I want to paint as many of the flowers in my garden as I can.  This one is painted in acrylics using them in a watercolour style on 1/4 imperial Bockingford paper.  Using acrylic is very different from watercolour, some good (you can paint over mistakes), some bad (quick drying time).  But it's interesting getting different effects dependent on the thickness of the paint.  I'm using Atelier Interactive acrylics at the moment but have got single tubes of various brands to see which I like the best.

Art and me

I've been going through my paintings, I keep everything I've done even the ones I don't like and those that didn't quite work how I wanted them to.  It's fascinating to see how my work is developing and I look at some with slightly more experienced eyes and think with a little tweak here and there I might be able to make something more pleasing out of them.  Others I love bits of them and not so much other parts so I'm thinking of starting work on a collage of the bits I like to see what comes of that.  Maybe also a collage of the parts I don't like so much would be interesting too?

When I first started painting just a couple of years ago (though it seems much longer) I doubted I would ever paint anything recognisable.  But with lots of practice and the help and advice of lots of art friends on Facebook (you know who you are) and watching lots of dvd's I don't think I'm doing to badly.  I like trying new things and have all sorts of art materials bought when I retired that only now am realising can be used together and don't have to be separate entities.  Sometimes I prefer a simple pen drawing and others I love to paint a watercolour rose, my favourite flower, which I honestly think is one of the most complicated flowers there is, especially the David Austen roses.  I'm trying to get the hang of acrylics, there's something about putting the thick paint on with either a brush or a knife that I'm beginning to like.  I've tried oils but it took days to dry and I simply haven't room to leave paintings out for any length of time while waiting for them to dry and acrylics fit the bill.  I'm willing to experiment with any medium but I have a sneaky feeling that watercolour will always be my first and last love.


Just a little watercolour that I did some time ago and I've just rediscovered it. I love the way the petals turn in this one.  Okay the background isn't great but I'm still learning.

This one is in pen and watercolour pencil, it's such a simple painting but nice.

Art is something precious in my life and one of the few things that can chase the 'black dog' away.

Mixed media.

A try out for a larger idea I have.  Now I just need to collect all the materials I want to use.

Here I'm just playing with an idea of maps in the background, both local and global.  Not quite sure where this will take me but at least I know I can stick things to paper!!  Oh and my raindrop stencil works.

Going abstract

Okay I'm taking a great big breath and showing you my first tentative steps into abstraction.  It's an area that has always fascinated me.  Painting for me is all about colours mingling on the surface of the paper and I believe this is something I could achieve with abstracts.  Amorphous shapes in beautiful blues and yellows, greys and blues, green and blues.  Spot the common link in there?

I'm also dabbling in mixed media but more of that in another post.

 

Sunflowers in a vase, the important part to the actual photograph was the shape of the vase and the seed heads of the flowers, everything else is just there.

 

 

This is an acrylic painting, I was just having a play with a knife blending colours with nothing particular in mind.  Sunset or a fire?  You decide.