Alcohol Ink Skies

Well hello! Once again it has been weeks between blog posts, but here I am with a surprising selection of cards for you.

Surprising because they are alcohol ink panels. I don’t remember the last time I worked with alcohol inks. In the last month or so I have done little else in the art realm but work with alcohol inks. Why might that be? I have been working outside with said inks. My sister-in-law who was staying with me in June and July joined me at a friend’s house where we set up outside in the shade with a pleasant breeze and proceeded to experiment with the inks. As I mentioned I hadn’t use them for a long time and had forgotten many techniques. Since then I have refreshed my memory by watching a few videos and have worked outside with the inks numerous times where I don’t get headaches from the alcohol and everything dries quickly. Occasionally panels end up in the garden but that is a price I am willing to pay.

I made a few panels with 2 or 3 ink colours per panel and a generous amount of 99% isopropyl alcohol to move and blend the colours. I used an air blower (hand pump style, not electric) and sometimes a spritzer filled with isopropyl to add splatter which looks like snow or stars. I worked on yupo paper, grafix white craft plastic and Nara paper, all similar products and all from my existing supplies. I am still committed to ‘Using What I Have’ as much as possible.

The second surprising thing about these cards is that they are Christmas cards. Never have I started my Christmas cards in the middle of summer. I have never wanted to because I am influenced so much by the seasons. For whatever reason that is not the case this year. Future me is going to be very thankful for this strange occurrence. These are three cards I made featuring the ‘polar bears’ die from Penny Black and a PB stamp set, “All is Bright”. I really enjoy creating northern skies with alcohol inks; they seem to mimic the beauty of the northern lights I am yet to see in person. I know that polar bears have nothing to do with Christmas but when I create alcohol ink or watercolour skies I am reminded of the verse from Psalm 19, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.’ Thank you for visiting and reading to the end of this post; I will warn you now, the alcohol ink blog posts have just begun, so buckle up my friends!