Alcohol Inks - Part I

  For a while I've admired alcohol ink paintings that I've seen other artists like Julie Ford Oliver (http://juliefordoliver.blogspot.com), Sandy Sandy (http://www.sandysandyart.com), and Kellie Chasse (http://kelliesartblog.blogspot.com) paint. I've studied their paintings closely, especially Julie's and have wanted to try it. I've been gathering the necessary supplies lately and then binge watched youtube videos to try to learn the process. The videos helped a little, but playing around with the inks and seeing what they do and how they react seems the best way to learn. Here are my first few attempts.

I picked a few colors and did the backgrounds for the flowers first. If you've never used alcohol inks they don't blend easily and repel each other making different patterns. One of the videos I watched suggested you blow on the areas of ink to make them spread...but they dry very quickly so you need to use a blending solution to keep them active a little longer. When these dried I used a little ink on each of them to outline some of the petals.