"Overwater" is the latest slideshow collection in the alcohol ink drip playing series as a response to the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic. While there is a lot of good news on the medical front and on the inoculation front, there is much more work that needs to be done. Anyway, this was a lot of fun!

1. Overwater
A beginner’s play in alcohol inks, alcohol
markers, acrylic paints, color pencils,
watercolor, crayons, and whatnot,
(non)synthetic papers,
light compositing,
and digital image editing…
Shalin Hai-Jew
Feb. 2022

2. 2
Light

3. 3
Purple Flower

4. 4
Outdoor Attractions

5. 5
Convergence

6. 6
Stir

7. 7
Leaf Fall

8. 8
Tortoise

9. 9
Pulling Up Stakes

10. Overwater
• “Overwater” is the latest in the alcohol ink drip playing series, started
in January 2021, and planned to continue until the COVID-19
pandemic subsides into endemicity.
• A recent talk on campus highlighted the One Health risks and the need for
effective global surveillance.
• Early work was about exploring how alcohol inks blended and
interacted also with the synthetic paper. Over time, there has been a
move towards structure and control, some more figurative works vs.
abstract, using brushes and palettes and other tools.
• Every mark forecloses on the range of visual opportunities but also enables
something else. Every mark can be built upon (until muddy is reached).
10

11. Overwater(cont.)
• The owl on the cover is made from a freehand sketch on tracing paper.
Sketching is apparently about proper shapes, proportions,
interrelationships, shading, and perspective. The learning at this stage is
almost purely mechanistic, far from learning something so well that it is in
one’s bones. To be credible in the visual space, though, it helps to know
how to draw (eventually).
• If nothing else, the above work goes to show what you can do with digital image
editing to create a sense of “finish” or pseudo-refinement.
• A few of the works include “photo illustration.” These involve the use of
personal photos intermixed with the alcohol ink works, in light composites.
• Through scanning one side, one work uses both sides of a translucent synthetic
sheet. Then, digital image editing brings out both into visual perception.
11

12. Overwater(cont.)
• This slideshow contains older works reactivated with isopropyl
alcohol (blending solution).
• One method involves spattering the blending solution with a mechanical
toothbrush.
• The tactic is to make them unrecognizable when possible, so they
cannot easily be recognized as an earlier work.
• Most of these works are useful for background, for textures.
• As mentioned earlier, the native form of these works is digital. The
analog materials serve almost as feeder stock.
12

13. Overwater(cont.)
• My goal is digital image editing fluency, and these works provide the
rationale and the time needed to actually acquire the necessary skills.
With the complexity of the software tools (suites of capabilities), one
can use them for years without leveling up, unless the work demands
it. The right way to evaluate a skillset is by what a person can do and
how they problem-solve, not how long they’ve been using a tool, not
what they profess. As always: costly signaling over cheap talk.
• It also helps to acquire the language to explain what one is doing or trying to
do, simultaneously.
• With every editing pass, there are tradeoffs between what is preserved vs.
what is lost or muted or hidden. The focal point(s) changes. The old order is
offset.
13

14. Overwater(cont.)
• Along the way, I am optimizing the sequencing…and experimenting with
various settings on the scanner. Given that the visuals are “seeding” ones, I
am not focusing on having works be in final states.
• Various works may be components of a larger work, for example. There are times to
give a scan an abstract name, to leave open the widest range of options.
• The focus is not directly on the visuals but on the potential consumers of
the visual and their visual systems and their brain processing of the works.
With more control, one can direct visual focus, maintain focus, affect
mood, and tap into the visual “familiar.”
• Learning in a workplace provides a forcing function and can result in faster KSA
(knowledge, skills, and abilities / attitudes) acquisition. These efforts are more about
use of personal time to acquire skills that enrich workplace KSAs.
14

15. Overwater(cont.)
• Being a self-apprentice feels very natural to me, as a personal
“journey” of a creative.
• I understand what it means to be open to the learning. The idea is to create a
context (opportunities) to experiment…and it is often important to try new
things (and to not settle into familiar patterns). Often, it is not until one gets
to a decision point that one realizes particular insights.
• A large part of the learning is technical but not at the cost of personality or
signature (and other self-indulgences). I know conceptual people for whom
the thinking is the thing. That’s one approach. It’s better to go full brain and
senses and elbow-deep, where possible.
• Going through the actual motions offers new insights. For example, most of the works
are colorful and dominant and bold. However, in one work, after a series of iterations,
the strongest one turned out to be gray and white. Muted dominated. Nuanced
dominated.
15

16. Overwater(cont.)
• It is hard to use blur purposively where it does not look like one is trying to
hide something, especially in the context of the natural sloppiness of the
alcohol inks.
• These later works involve more openness to “found” works, such as
splotches that occur accidentally on the back of alcohol ink paintings. I am
more willing to go piecemeal.
• I am not generally whimsical or sentimental, but some of the works in this
slideshow seem to be.
• I am discovering light obsessions with owls and turtles.
• I also tried one visual joke. Hopefully, you can see which one is the joke.
• Some of these works are re-used ones with new applications of inks and
isopropyl alcohol and other effects.
16

17. On white sketch paper
17

18. 18
Overwatch

19. On black synth paper
19

20. 20
Heartbeat

21. 21
Night Flora 1

22. 22
Night Flora 2

23. On white synth paper
23

24. 24
Truest Blue

25. 25
Piping

26. 26
Flourish

27. 27
Green Pastures

28. 28
Imagination

29. 29
Dark Moon

30. 30
Coalescence

31. 31
Morning

32. 32
Reverberations

33. 33
Light Play

34. 34
Dilution

35. 35
Into Weather

36. 36
Cavern 1

37. 37
Cavern 2

38. On translucent synth paper
38

39. 39
Roadside Edibles

40. 40
Slug

41. 41
Melt

42. 42
Swim

43. 43
Solid Water

44. 44
Warming

45. 45
Assort

46. On digital variants
46

47. 47
Tree Branches

48. 48
Turtle Adventures

49. 49
Nested Bird

50. 50
Lotus

51. 51
Bristle Brush Tree

52. 52
Wasp

53. 53
Air and Space

54. 54
Pink Flower

55. 55
Into Focus

56. 56
Snail Trails

57. 57
Rock Veins

58. 58
Butterfly Lure

59. 59
Butterfly Net

60. 60
Sun over Water

61. 61
Simple Pour

62. 62
Romantic Countryside
(digital chalk and charcoal)

63. 63
Lightening Sky

64. 64
Selection

65. 65
All Weather

66. 66
Flit

67. 67
Willow

68. 68
Owl

69. 69
Fluid Networks

70. 70
Under Water