Our hostess was my friend Julie, whom I have known since back in our Indo-Days. The venue was this wonderfully airy studio, which her hubby added on to their property after suggesting that the basement of their vintage rock house might be better suited to a pool table. She thought it was a pretty good trade-off.
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| One of Julie's Works-In-Progress |
Our focus for the day was to be these -- alcohol inks.
Our instructor was artist Mary Barton. Though she is a potter at heart, she has learned to do amazing things with these inks.
We spent the first half of the day trying out lots of different techniques and making those little sample cards you see spread out on the table. Unlike other inks, which are used on porous surfaces, alcohol inks do not react to water at all, only alcohol (at least 91%) and are best used on slick, non-porous surfaces like YUPO paper, glass, plexiglass, or ceramic tiles. We used the YUPO paper, which is made from polypropylene -- so not really paper at all.
After our lunch break we moved on to some serious play time, where we toyed with backgrounds using the Tim Holtz felt stamping tool, and abstract landscapes using coffee stirrers!
The thing you have to understand about alcohol inks is, well, there's just no controlling them. Once they hit a slick surface, or come into contact with alcohol, they pretty much do what they want to do. You just have to let go and let it flow. Once you finally accept that, and quit trying to plan everything out in your head, you'll be amazed at the glorious accidents that will unfold!
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| These funky flowers were made by dripping ink and alcohol, then blowing on it through straws. |
While we're on the subject of hanging out with crazy-creative women, guess what I saw yesterday? The line-up of instructors for Lucky Star Art Camp 2014! Squeee! Not only will all of my favorites from last year be back, they've also added several new ones, including Mindy-Freakin'-Lacefield! See that Christmas ornament in the center of my blog banner at the top of this page? Well, before I painted that, I never drew or painted human beings. I was terrified of even attempting that! But then I signed up for the 12 Artsy Ornaments of Christmas class in 2012. 12 projects taught by 12 different instructors -- one of which was that ornament, taught by Mindy Lacefield. If I could paint that after watching one little video of hers, imagine what could come out of spending several hours with her, in person!
Can you tell I'm excited?
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1 comment:
Yes I can tell you're excited! I love the 'funky flowers' above, and what a lovely studio to 'play' in!
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