Watercolor/ink experiment:

I painted the conglomeration of dots you see below, a couple of days ago, in the midst of my ink dot exploration craze – I mean, phase.

In this composition I washed the paper with Prussian blue and cadmium yellow pale before dotting. I used a combination of drawing and calligraphy inks on the wet paper.  The drawing inks are the ones that reticulate, or spread out in a fractal-like pattern. The calligraphy inks spread out more smoothly.

Unlike my more methodical study of ink dots (see Dot Matrix), this composition was a haphazard application of inks. I overlaid some of the drawing ink on the dry calligraphy ink and found that the underlying ink was somewhat waterproof. A bright spot of red poked through the blue ink I laid on top of it. Instead of leaving the single spot as it was, I used my straight razor to scrape the blue ink away and reveal more of the red beneath, after the paper was completely dry. I used the same technique to scrape away some of the pigment from the red spot at the bottom left of the frame.

Dot Crazy
9″x12″ 140# Rough Watercolor Block

Comment:

The dark ink blots stand out and appear to be in the foreground. Puffs of black smoke (anti aircraft fire), perhaps? The amalgamation of red, appearing as background, could be a late afternoon sky.

I realized that in my previous ink experiments I was a bit timid (Amorphia, Reticulations, Dot Matrix). I was not aware that I was fearful about how I applied my ink blots, but I probably was. I may have tipped the scale in the opposite direction with the composition above. I was less careful of placement of ink blobs. I was not as concerned with aesthetics in this study.

I will probably give ink blots a rest for now.