Good Fortunes

Here's a painting technique that is easy and versatile and could be used for a lot of different things. On this sheet, I didn't cover the entire page with color, but when you do, it looks almost like stained glass. As I look at these photos, I wish I'd painted more of the white.

I used blue painter's tape to block out small areas of the paper. It's perfect because it has "low tack" and doesn't leave a residue. I filled a dropper with ink and then, not squeezing the bulb, used it to draw lines across the paper. I then took a dry brush and swept across the wet inks. This gave a crosshatched result and some shading. I let that dry about 45 seconds then took a contrasting ink and with a damp brush, painted in some of the white areas. I used acrylic inks to keep it transparent. The purple ink was in a dropper but didn't do as well as the black with the brush. A different kind of ink. It would have been better to use it for painting areas rather than a big swash, I think.

I didn't start out to make something to use fortune cookie fortunes, I was just experimenting, but then, the spaces were the perfect size and I needed to make a retirement card and I had a big bowl of saved fortunes, so . . . there you have it. . . the art process in motion.