Alcohol Ink on Silver Leaf

With gel medium, 2014. I wish I could capture the colors in the sky better. It looks like sheet metal that has been treated with a torch. 

Without gel medium, 2013. The shooting star was added to conceal all the scratches.

I do believe I've solved the problem of working on silver leaf with alcohol ink. Last summer I created an ink painting on silver Simple Leaf applied to Yupo but it scratched so easily I was forced to toss it in the bin. I did get one scan of that painting I don't think I shared on my blog so I will today. Yesterday I gave it another go but this time I applied a coat of Liquitex gloss gel medium and allowed it to dry before adding any ink. I was thrilled the leaf now withstood quite a beating which included multiple layers of ink and blending solution plus some manipulation with a tool. The gel medium formed a protective buffer 'tween me and it with nary a scratch in sight. FYI, I don't recommend using Pearl mixative on silver leaf, though. It produced a rather flat, 'dirty' look I don't like at all.  

Back to the Inks

Last night I cut myself a few 5" x 7" pieces of Yupo and played with my Adirondack alcohol inks. Here are some of my results. They are simple little abstracts and it felt so good to let the inks loose and let them do what they do. No plan, just play. Seems I usually wind up with a lot of tree shapes emerging or maybe I see trees in almost every abstract. I do like to add inks that have more open time like Pitch Black or one of the mixatives. Then I can manipulate them with a bamboo skewer or some other tool before they are too dry.

The Timekeeper's Cottage ~ complete

SOLD

Although it doesn't look like I made any changes, I made a few. I used blending solution to bleed some background color into the lilies and the cat. They looked too stark before, at least to my eye. The image doesn't show it but I also added some Pearl Mixative to the large key and the hour glass to bring them both out of the background. Fighting the urge to fiddle anymore, I put my inks down and called this complete. Some of the ink colors are as difficult to photograph as they are to scan. An example is the 'neon' blue in the upper left corner. That passage isn't anywhere near as 'violent' IRL. The Moon isn't as muddy as it appears here either. I also decided not to re-ink the areas where the Micron pen was washed away by the alcohol inks. I like the lost edges.

Note: The only problem with using rubbing alcohol with Ranger inks is it's tendency to dull the shiny finish. I'm going to apply several coats of Krylon gloss UV protectant varnish to bring back the shine and make the colors appear more vibrant.

Fire Line

This is my latest ink painting. I just finished it and was reminded of a fire line aka firebreak. I see creeping rivers of fire held back by an open space, devoid of vegetation, while trees still stand in the background untouched.

I created this with various blue inks along with Sunset Orange, gold mixative and plenty of blending solution on Yupo. It never fails to fascinate me watching the inks move, expand and often produce amazing textures with little or no help from me. In fact, the less I 'help', the better the result.