Tonight I took a Suminagashi class at the local artist collective The Hive Collective. I love having the opportunity to try lots of different art techniques right in my own neighborhood.
The instructor, L. Manninen, did several examples for us, so we could see the technique in action … then we each got our own container of water, inks & photo flow solution and spent the evening meditatively playing.
I started with black and just enjoyed the process of adding ink for quite a while … very relaxing.
I should be able to recreate this technique at home with my varied collection of inks … can't wait to try it. We just used ink jet paper, which picked-up the inks beautifully.
Of course you know I didn't stay with black & white for long … I had to try the colored inks. As the water got more saturated with inks (which sink to the bottom of the water and don't really affect your prints), you couldn't really see what you were going to get until you laid down the paper (which was sort of cool).
I loved going back and using black ink after my water was tinted pink … such fun effects.
It was hard to pick a favorite.
The Cedar Rapids Zen Center even treated us to Japanese cake & beverages … the Lychee was delicious.
We layered or marbled papers between pieces of clean paper, and then I laid them out to dry when I got home … what a rainbow of color.
Here are a few more close-ups of the finished pieces (you can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them). Can't wait to make some masculine note cards with the black & white.
And the black on pink are lovely too.
But I really can't wait to play again with the more vibrant colors.
So much paper and ink fun.