Exploring Acrylic Ink

When you’ve been painting as long as I have, you collect art materials -  a lot of art materials. Visiting an art supply store is the best therapy. The lure of shiny new paints, brushes, sketchbooks, pens and pencils is very hard to resist. If you have seen my studio you would have seen evidence of this - many, many brushes, boxes of drawing tools, paints and sketchbooks. 

Many years ago, I attended a workshop which stipulated an extensive supply list which included a number of acrylic inks. After the workshop was over, I realised that the inks had been just a whim of the tutor - none had been used during the workshop! Now and again I’ve enjoyed using the inks, but since the workshop I had not done a deep dive into their possibilities.

A couple of years ago, I came across the work of Missy Dunaway. Here’s a link to her website http://www.missydunaway.com/ . She uses acrylic inks almost exclusively in a Moleskine sketchbook as a wonderful visual diary of her travels. 

Take a look at her Instagram page - it’s so inspirational. Now here was an opportunity to explore the inks more thoroughly. I took part in a couple of online courses that she offered through through Creative Bug and more recently a course offered in conjunction with Moleskine called The Travelling Artist. 

Now here was an opportunity to explore the inks more thoroughly.I took part in a couple of online courses that she offered through through Creative Bug and more recently a course offered in conjunction with Moleskine called The Travelling Artist. This type of work aligned with my current preoccupation with working smaller, and, more importantly the course was scheduled at a civilised hour for Australia. (Most online offerings take place as 2 or 3am AEDT!)

The 3 tutorials were two hours each over a period of three months - plenty of time to practice in between sessions.

Acrylic ink provides a flexibility not present in watercolour - colours can be layered multiple times, allowing one to edit and alter frequently.

I am, by nature, quite an impatient painter. I tend to paint and then rapidly move on to the next shiny thing. Missy’s approach is to continue refining and adjusting her painting far longer achieving wonderful detail. So this is a good practice for me, to push through and work on the detail. 

Windarra stream - acrylic ink on watercolour paper 

The Country Lane -  acrylic ink in Moleskine sketchbook 

Coastal Landscape - Tasmania - acrylic ink in Moleskine sketchbook 

 

Mt Wellington Tasmania acrylic ink in Moleskine sketchbook