Saturday, October 22, 2011

Vegetable Oil and Sumi Ink Prints



Panel with "found papers", sumi ink and beeswax

An artist friend of mine shared with me a very entertaining technique using vegetable oil and sumi ink. You take a vat or small plastic tub, fill it with water. Then you work with two sumi ink brushes- one in each hand, one brush gets dipped in vegatable oil and the other dipped in sumi ink and you then alternate tapping the surface of the water with the ink brush and the oil brush. The oil resists the ink making a sort of marbeling effect that floats right on the surface of the water. After you get a pleasing composition,take a sheet of paper and just sort of gently 'kiss' the surface of the water in the tub, and quickly, carefully lift the paper right back out. The marbeled ink composition will transfer onto the paper. The effects are really lovely.

2 comments:

Tiffany Teske said...

Thanks for sharing this, Arlene! I can't wait to try it!!

Smoky Glow Studios said...

oh, you will LOVE doing this technique. So much fun, every print we did that day came out amazing,... what a high, I couldn't stop laughing