Ink - Have you ever done a painting on ink?

Are there acrylic inks? (am I making this up?) One of the artists that shows with us does very labor intensive fine ink drawings with .ooo (.001?) rapidographs, of redwood groves and aldergroves (they take her about eighty hours each) and over the years we've known her, she gets better and better with the light and the density and the depth... anyway, she has just started with a bit of color, and I think the new colored ink is acrylic. I'll have to ask her, but it's the weekend now..

yes osso there are acrylic inks, i haven't used them but a friend does - in very free paintings - and she loves them.

As just about everyone has said ink is unforgiving, but if use them like watercolours and paint fast it can create some interesting states. Have you thought of mixing the ink with impasto or another thickening agent and use the ink like gouache. At least you wouldn't have to work so fast. You can get colourfast inks I know, a company called Lyson makes them.

but that would lose their translucency

Star - thank you for the info, very useful to me!

Lou - no I have not, I was thinking on using it just as it is, the ink I want to use has very beautiful colors, that's why I want to try with them.

Here is the link where you can see the colors:

J. Herbin

Vivien - How do you know it would lose its translucency. Have you tried this ? Actually I haven't but I thought it might be a good idea or one that's worth playing with. Gouache does not lose its pigment/colour/range by thickening it, it becomes something more maleable....that is my experience and that's all I have to go on.

The only thing I can do is try it. I'd planned a day of introspection in the studio tomorrow, but now I have a purpose, i'll let you know the results.

it wouldn't lose its colour range but any thickening would affect the translucency - things are only translucent when they are thin liquids that the underlying paper/support shines through.

I have used watercolour with gouache, which similarly loses the translucency - nice but different, the luminosity isn't the same.

I use a lot of mixed media where all sorts of things are used together.

all this talk of ink makes me feel like a trip to the art shop

It would keep the translucency if the texture was put on first and left to dry and the ink then washed over it.

I wonder what would happen if you mixed ink with galkyd.

On an offhand note, I saw a series of paintings made out of bubble gum yesterday. The texture was interesting and they got a suprisingly good color range. I suspect the artist to be in leage with some sugar-hungry kindergarteners.

That sounds wild - How big were the paintings and what colors predominated, was it abstract and what is the name of the artist?

I will like to see that!

They were by this person Felice House

The images of bubble-gum are under portfolio, although the pictures aren't very large. I don't think she is alone in the idea - there is some artist out there who makes portraits of celebrities out of bubble gum.

Star - they look very nice, I wouldn't have think they were made with bubble-gum. It's very "interesting", I wonder how much are they worth and how many bubble-gums he used on it. LOL

Is it all bubble-gum or there is also pigment? She doesn't say anything about it.

ink was a stage...
Back in the day, ink was another stage in the devbelopment of a painting.
Most people think paint was applied after charcoal sketching...in fact it would then have been ink in many cases and then followed with oils.

Now the ink stage is most often an acrylic layer...during underpainting.

Booda

Ink as a stage
...I believe there is evidence of an ink layer in paintings By Vermeer for instance.

Booda
Edit (Moderator): Link removed

Has anyone heard from LouisH?

Nope.

Oh, good. I was going to ask next if anyone has heard from Osso. Hi.

Laughing - I've been lounging today, posting my little fingers off on a2k. It's been a looooooong week, and look, here's another one coming up!

Ok everybody, this is just an informational post!

I have finished one Ink and an Ink/Acrylic combination, and have to say it, I'm very happy with the results I got, so much, that I have already booked the 2 finished ones and another on which I'm working on for the next exhibition I'll be taking part of. I'll be posting pictures of the paintings soon.

Thank you all for all your opinions and advice in the topic.

I'm excited to see the results of your artwork. I'm interested in using different mediums. Right now I work primarily in pastels, but also do some very rough sketching only with a normal No. 2 pencil. Any ideas for another type of art I should start using?

well unless you were trying to forge it and sell it which you weren't then it's not illegal...there's nothing at all wrong with copying, it's the fastest way to learn the skills you'll need to develope your own style!

I haven't done as much with ink as I'd like...but considering how permanent and simple it is...I think the trick is to be confident in one's strokes!