I wanted to develop my work further by experimenting with a different medium to see whether the result created would be something I could be interesting in pursuing. For a few years, I had been interested in trying out Alcohol Ink as a more abstract method of painting, however, never got round to testing it out. So, I decided to purchase a set of 12 inks and the rubbing alcohol needed, priming many MDF boards to test out as I had never tried it before! I also purchased purpose made alcohol ink art paper too as I wasn’t sure whether my cheap and cheerful MDF primed boards would do the job.

I began by purely testing out which colours looked better together as well as how to actually work the ink and alcohol together. This was much tougher than I had expected especially when working outside in windy conditions. This method allowed me to still use the weather as a controlling medium (as I still created my art outside) and it also allowed me to form the suggestion of a stormy sky/clouds but is still left to interpretation. I ended up deciding that the earthy tones looked better for my project more than the pinks/reds/yellows etc. I have attached the ones I created below:

I particularly like the composition where there is also a line running diagonally across the board as I feel this resembles a cloud formation. I also ended up preferring working on the make do MDF boards, although, I had to prime them 3 times to make sure they were non-porous as the amount of alcohol needed to stay on the surface to mix with the ink.

I then wanted to develop my work even further by possible combining my love of oil painting into it. As shown in my very first circle pieces, using Turner as inspiration, I painted vast landscapes and skies using these earthy tones as mentioned previously. I painted overtop of one of my larger alcohol ink pieces, I imagined this is gaining back some control of the uncontrollable. However, I wasn’t happy with the outcome of this as it not only didn’t add anything to the piece, but I felt it hid the best parts of the ink. The one test is attached below:

I do feel that I love the outcome the alcohol ink created and will definitely continue to use it, the more I practice and experiment, the more I can continue. I may return to trying painting overtop again but differently in the future, but for now I am considering using a different medium or method to develop my work.