March 2017 – Sunshyne Art & Design

Expressionism With Alcohol Inks

Recently I had been wanting to try painting with alcohol inks. I had come across some gorgeous paintings online which were done with them, and I loved the flowy expressiveness achieved with them. It is such an intuitive process using them. They have a mind of their own, but some control can be achieved using straight alcohol (I used isopropyl) and various sizes and shapes of brushes. Largely, I just let them do their thing, and then tweak the picture here and there. Experiment, experiment, experiment! Too fun! 😀

The only thing is that a lot of ventilation is needed, as I found out the hard way! I mean, I knew it would be somewhat fumy, but working as small as I did, on 2inch square ceramic tiles(which I got really cheap at the home improvement centre), I was too close, and ended up with a headache on my first go around! I need to pick up some low odour alcohol at the art supply store, and I also want to continue my ink exploration with a specialty paper called Yupo. They need to be sealed with a fixative, also, or the ink will rub off of the tile.

I’ve done three landscapes and three abstracts, so far. Since they are very small, I made them into fridge magnets. 🙂

“Rockies Summer” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Rockies Sunset” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Foothills” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Organica” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Psychedelica” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

Aquatica — “Aquatic” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Revelry” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

They are available in my various art shops as prints, and on products. 🙂

organica-floor-pillows — “Organica” on a floor pillow @ society6…..Click pic for link. 🙂

preview-leggings-585037-back — “Aquatica” on leggings @art of where….click pic for link. 🙂

Tropica

I recently joined an art networking site called paintingsilove.com, and it is a wonderful site for getting feedback on your paintings/drawings, and for the inspiration aspect to it, as well. I often gather creative energy when I visit there! One comment I received on a painting I posted, called it “lush”, and that word was a great prompt to break through the creative block I was experiencing at the time. 🙂

I thought of the word, and what it meant to me, and I immediately went to Hawaii in my head. The lushness of that place is beyond amazing! The scenery notwithstanding, it is lush in other ways, as well, like the scents, and the tastes, and the general feeling of the place.

I felt inspired to do a painting with tropical colours, with the objective being to give me a sense of being in the tropics every time I looked at it. And also a feeling of peace and joy. 🙂

I wanted also to do it intuitively, instead of having a detailed plan. I wanted to see where my mind would take me, just by using color and imagery such as flowers. I started my usual way, with just a background of smeared color, and then looked at it to see what would emerge. I found three birds, a large heart surrounding two of them, and another smaller heart to the right of them. Birds seem to keep appearing in my work! Hearts always did, and continue to do so. Must be some kind of symbolism in that for me, I suppose. lol

I added stencilled flowers, and began to paint the top layers, sketching out my shapes with white chalk, and going with the crackle gel effect again, in spots because I love it so much! 🙂

Painting a slightly translucent layer of white, then going over it in a color gives a lovely luminosity with acrylics, so I tended to employ it quite a bit with this piece. The finished painting fills me with color joy when I look at! I hung it in my foyer, so I see it a LOT. It turned out as happy and tropical as I had intended without using stereotypical tropical imagery like palm trees, etc. Have to be different, ya know! 😛

I have it posted at my various art shops. It looks great as prints and on products such as tote bags! 😀

tropica342510-bags — “Tropica” @ society6…..Click pic for link! 🙂

preview-yoga-leggings-585214-back — “Tropica” on leggings @ art of where….click pic for link! 🙂

Unicorns Graze Here

My newest little acrylic started out bright purple and blue, and I had no idea where it was going to go. It wasn’t moving me, so I mixed white and bronze yellow together with my fingers, and just smooshed it all over to cover the purple.

I then “drew” into the wet paint with my pointy tools to bring out the purple underneath. I also used my new fave “paint lifter” which is a piece of cotton lace-like ribbon.

I missed doing my whimsical landscapes, so that is where this one ended up going. I love my trees, hills, and mountains! 🙂

I did the colouring over the white/bronze yellow background with acrylics heavily diluted with floating medium, so that they were super transparent. I built up the color, transparent layer by transparent layer….sides too…of course!

I love how the glazing gave it a vintage kind of feel….especially over the distress marks I had made earlier. Super pretty colorations! 🙂

I like the little landscape I ended up with. Needed an interesting name. Sometimes(usually! lol) I have a very hard time coming up with names for my paintings.

I thought it looked like a happy, magical place to be…a place where one might find unicorns grazing. ;D

Wonderment

Another intuitive painting. I had made this big peace heart stamp when I was on my stamp making kick, and was itching to use it. Then I got stamping fever, haha, and used a few of my other homemade stamps over a color blocked background….

Effect happy was I, so I went all out with some experimentation. Very fun was that!

I used a stencil to create the swirls with modelling paste, and did the streaking thing again with the crackle gel…

Then I also tried plastic wrap over wet paint….I love how that turned out….so random and beautiful! 🙂

I built up layers, and then I found some iridescent blue in my stash of old paint, and thought I would throw a little on my swirls…

I found these wonderful pens at the art supply store. Perfect for adding little details, like dots and words. They are acrylic, not ink, so will not smear when I put the varnish on at the end, and also are refillable, so that rocks! 😀

After layer upon layer, and tweaking with little details here and there, I ended up with something intricately colourful, joyful, and “wonderful”to look at. 🙂