Playing With Inks

I've been wanting to try acrylic inks for a while now, and most especially since a few weeks ago, when I watched my first video on Juliette Crane's online course called "Serendipity", where she uses them to great effect.  I had told myself I didn't need any more art supplies and for a while, that was enough to keep me from buying them.  But today, I ignored that restrictive voice and headed to the store to pick some up.

There are 30 colours available in the Liquitex ink! line, I picked up these 6 to start with: Naphthol Crimson, Phthalocyanine Green (where do they get these names?!), Carbon Black, Yellow Oxide, Titanium White and Deep Violet, plus one FW brand by Daler Rowney, the Burnt Umber shade.  I didn't get a blue and already I'm wishing I had.  Although the Phthalocyanine Green looks very blue in the photo of the bottles below, it really isn't, as you can see from the colour on the pages. I think a turquoise shade would be a good addition to my collection, don't you?

Of course, I wasn't the only one excited about my new purchases.  My trusty studio assistants had to check them out immediately.

Photobomb by Matisse

Suzie takes a sniff

When it was my turn again, I sprayed water on some watercolour paper and used the droppers on the bottles to add each of the colours to the pages.

The entire process was closely supervised.

All of the inks came out quite liquidy except the white, which was much thicker (I hadn't shaken the bottle enough the first time around).  I pressed the two pages together and got shapes that look a bit like pieces of coral, which I quite liked.

What I am most excited about is the fact that these inks are, according to the brochure, permanent once dry.  As much as I love the Dylusions sprays, it bothers me that they are not permanent.  If I add water or any sort of wet medium (a fixative, a clear gesso, gel medium) to something I've made using a Dylusions spray, even if it's a month or two years from now, the colour will reactivate. That's not usually something I want to happen but I don't always remember that fact until it's too late.  With these inks, it shouldn't be a problem.  Now, if only they came with a spray top!

The final results:

Looking forward to more experiments with these inks!