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This weekend, I created an ink painting – yes an INK painting – that felt so therapeutic; it’s a technique I’ve been wanting to play with, and as the color began to interact across the page, it captured my current mood. It’s been heartbreaking watching the numbers of the infected and the dead rise – and all I can think of is how each one touches their entire family. So when we have three and four thousand dead, multiply that by however many people are crushed by the loss. It’s just an unimaginable pain.
Supplies for this project are linked at the end of this post. Compensated affiliate links may be used at no cost to you.
This wasn’t necessarily a “planned” piece. I had taken a class from Nick Stewart (visit his site HERE and his Udemy class HERE) – and had been away from the lessons for a couple weeks and wanted to return to them. He’s an amazing artist with inks and understanding the chromatography that some of them have, and I’ve been buying inks to try to learn what he’s learned too! See the reaction of the two black inks in the video, then pop back to read on below.
The inks I used are listed in the supplies – the golden yellow is the Faber Castell, the turquoiose is the Montblanc. SUCH cool effects! I got the little jar for my bleach at the grocery store – I could only find them in packs of dozens online, so I recommend getting them locally. Bleach too. Nobody needs to ship that. LOL.
The glass pens are way fun, I have a couple of them. the ones that are $6 or $7 seem to work as well as the pricier fancy ones. All glass pens, from my current knowledge, are a little “scratchy” on the paper surface, so I’m not keen on drawing with them in general except for testing out colors and papers – it’s a great way to try out a new ink I’ve gotten but not have to fill a pen yet. (Which requires washing out the previous ink color!) The dip pen allows me to be lazy! But the TWSBI Eco is my affordable pen-to-love; I have one in medium and one in a fine nib…so if you’re looking for one to start with, I’d begin there.
FREE DIGIS!
Since I’m in thinking-about-staying-home mode, I decided to create a couple digis too – they’re free, you can pop over to my other site to pick them up.
Be sure to share what you create to remind your friends and family to stay home too….and send your card on to someone who might be having trouble staying in. It’s hard, but we need to break the back of this virus!
SUPPLIES
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- Montblanc Mystery Black – turns goldish with bleach
- Graf von Faber-Castell Ink, Carbon Black – – turns turquoise with bleach
- Platinum Carbon Ink – waterproof
- Glass pen (they come in all kinds of colors/styles!)
- TWSBI Eco Fountain pen, medium nib
I want to experiment with bleach and different effects now!!! But one question: Are you using straight bleach, or are you diluting it? If so, how much are you diluting it? Thanks in advance!!!
Just straight bleach!
I was just recently thinking about using my inks in this way. I know I have enough bottles to last…some lifetimes after forever. Hadn’t gotten around to it, but seeing this bleach reaction got me thinking about it again. Noodler’s has a few inks that react, like Whaleman’s Sepia. I’ve been wanting to try a few shimmer or sheening inks in just water reactions.
I have to admit…I was slow about getting to this blog post because I thought I wouldn’t be interested. However, I saw someone post their version of your Digi on the art-classes students FB page and I went searching for it. It didn’t take me long to realize I actually wanted to watch the video too. I loved watching you create the skyline with your glass pen and bleach. What a neat piece of artwork!! Thanks for sharing this with us. As usual, your talent blows me away. While I have discovered that Copics are my medium and rather than jump from one class to another in different mediums I need to focus on one thing long enough to actually “get” it, I can also enjoy just watching you do other things as well. Thanks for the Digi!
Thank you so much, Sandy. These are really cute!
WOW! That was WAY COOL! My mind is blown! It was amazing how the same black looking inks reacted so differently with the bleach. You never cease to amaze with these different mediums. Thank you for the *free* digi images- I will make cards for my co-workers. Please stay healthy, hugs to G and V!
Ditto Gab-hauntingly beautiful. And I can’t explain it-but I find peaceful. have always been drawn to dark beauty. Wonder if I could make a BIG one to hang over my couch.
Haunting and beautiful Sandy. Thank you so much for the digital stamps too – I love them!
Sandy, is there any way to remove your “@2020 sandy allnock” from the free download image?
No….it’s a copyright, that’s the reason it’s there.
Sandy, you’re just the BEST! Thanks so much for the digi and the bleach lesson. By the way, in the past when I wanted a small jar for an art supply, like gamsol, I would purchase one jar of baby food and clean it very well. I’m not sure if baby food still comes in glass jars, come to think of it. Now, GO WASH YOUR HANDS! Hugs, Jan
so fun to see this magic happen. Thanks you for the digital!
Thanks for the adorable digi downloads, Sandy! I am going to give it a try! Love your beautiful ink painting!
Warm Hugs,
Michele
That was very stunning to see, wow what a different colours there is in a bottle of black ink!
Thank you so much for sharing, it’s a gorgeous piece of art and thank you for the free downloads.
STay safe and have a wonderful day.
Oohh my goodness what a wonderfull card with that awesome dramatic sky.
Never seen this technique before with just ink and bleach, must give this a try tooo in the near future ;o)
Thank you very much for sharing how you made it and for the free ‘Stay Home- Stay safe’ digi.
Take care
Never heard of a glass pen, but now I’m gonna have to have one! I love pretty glass. That’s cool, the way different inks react with clorox, too – nothing like a really germ and virus-free painting, eh?! What a crazy little planet we live on. Thanks for showing us something new!