1. Waves
A beginner’s play in alcohol inks,
watercolor,
(non) synthetic papers,
and digital image editing…
Shalin Hai-Jew
July 2021

2. 2
First Flowers (Digital Bas Relief)

3. 3
Instrument

4. 4
Reverence (as Touch)

5. 5
Suspense

6. 6
Blister Pack

7. 7
Native Weeds

8. 8
Space Tourism

9. 9
“Color Purple” as Digital Watercolor

10. Waves
• “Waves” is the latest in the alcohol ink drip playing series in a time of
the pandemic. This series started in January 2021, so at least a year in
to the pandemic in the U.S.
• These “common art” works are still fun and appealing. They still
relieve stress.
• In this slideshow, both AP 2021 and AI 2021 were used for the digital
variants, born analog and born digital.
• Sharp-eyed folks may notice some new uses of gradients, some uses of plastic
wrap effects, some bas relief, some chrome effects, some born-digital works,
and other approaches.
10

11. Waves (cont.)
• With digital means, one can have the concept and the execution at
less strenuousness and at lower cost to the artist for materials (once
the basic technologies are acquired).
• Where innovations happen is in the edge cases…and the edges:
analog and digital, combinations of filters and interaction effects,
sequential innovations, and others.
• There are ways to lighten visuals by dialing back the darkness of
layered inks.
• There is fatigue in excessive digital manipulation, however, unless one
is working on a particular vision or project.
11

12. Waves (cont.)
• For all the value-added of the digital image editing, there are
downsides, too.
• There is a high learning curve.
• The digital works look digital. It takes hard work to make a digital work look
manual and analog. For example, with digital underpainting, there is a digital
sheen of fake gesso that is patterned.
• I like the sense that these are “studies” and light experiments. It just
takes a while to start seeing the learning in the newer works.
12

13. Waves(cont.)
• There, too, is the benefit of experiencing the grueling aspects of
trying to create art with materials, which are all stubborn and
insistent on their own way.
• There is something about working with the alcohol ink skin that forms. There
is something about playing with time: faster drying, slower drying.
• There is playing with various ways to move the alcohol ink, to blend them.
• There is something about being in the moment and viscerally
experiencing an alcohol ink drip playing work. There may be no
obvious concept early on but only later.
• An analog work might only be good for seeding (which is freeing for
exploration).
13

14. Waves(cont.)
• There are internalized rules around visuals, whether one is aware or
not. Breaking these rules and norms may result in rejection by
viewers. On the other hand, the rules can come in handy where the
visual imagination stalls.
• For whatever one imagines will happen, it helps to do a walk-through
to see what actually happens.
• How exactly will ink displace what came before? What new impressions will
be left? How does the mood change?
• What of what came before? Which was better, the irrecoverable prior state
or the current one?
14

15. Waves (cont.)
• Every analog work is illusory. Every change to that work changes the
illusion and opens up other possibilities. New possibilities mean
closed doors for some options. (Digital works at least enable a return
to a prior state, saving out multiple versions of each respective work.)
• On the one hand, it’s good to avoid an initial or later fixed idea.
• One wants to work with the “nature” of the materials, but there is
something of a feat in being able to create particular non-intuitive
effects as well...apply definition to material that tends towards in-
definition and abstraction.
15

16. Waves(cont.)
• In writing, the work is abstract. One has to build a scaffolding and
then fill out that scaffold. And, a person has to get beyond the
mental critic.
• In art, once the work starts, the physicality of the object has its own
momentum. The materiality makes the mood; it informs the decision making.
(When doing research writing, the research materials have their own
momentum, too, and these help drive the work.)
• I ran across a term—”pronounced amateurism,” which applies in this
case. It is so freeing. It helps to be aware of the rules that one takes
on while experimenting with common art. The staying limber is
challenging, along with everything else (creativity is hard work / hard
fun).
16

17. On white synth paper
17

18. 18
Winds

19. 19
Thunder Snow

20. 20
Sky and Sea

21. 21
Crosshatch

22. 22
Fool’s Gold

23. 23
Revelry

24. 24
Hatchlings

25. 25
Flowering Tree

26. 26
Reverence

27. 27
Atmospherics

28. 28
Break in Clouds

29. 29
Color Purple

30. On translucent synth paper
30

31. 31
Catalyst

32. 32
Incursions

33. Digital variants from black
cardstock
33

34. 34
Hoof

35. 35
Silent Ripples

36. On digital variants
36

37. 37
Childhood Scribbles

38. 38
Exo

39. 39
Bowl

40. 40
Scabbing Over

41. 41
PlasticVerse

42. 42
Complexity

43. 43
Expansion

44. 44
Areas of Interest

45. 45
UAV Flyover

46. 46
Flora

47. 47
Leafing

48. 48
Fluidity

49. 49
History

50. 50
Notepaper

51. 51
Fire

52. 52
Beaded Container

53. 53
Lotus Blooms

54. 54
Meta

55. On born-digital variants
55

56. 56
Emotion

57. 57
“Hacky Sack”

58. 58
Peaks and Valleys

59. 59
Digital Scribbles

60. 60
Spin