Alcohol Ink || Desirée Delȃge

Fluid art is, apparently, “the hottest art trend since paint pouring”. You can call me sceptical if you wish but I have to say that, on the basis of the results demonstrated here, I could be a convert.

Most books of this kind play heavily on serendipity and “happy accidents”, which I interpret as a lack of controllability and, just maybe, of ability on the part of the practitioner. Here, however, the emphasis is on control and making a very fluid medium conform to your intentions. Where other books that I’ve seen tend to concentrate on abstracts and patterns, Desirée will show you how to prepare surfaces and manipulate the medium to create recognisable images – mainly flowers and leaves – that have what I can really only describe as an ethereal beauty I haven’t seen achieved with other media of this type.

As you would hope and expect, there’s a good introduction to materials and working methods, particularly soaking and drifting, which is how you allow the ink to pool and then draw it out rather in the matter of a watercolour wash. She’ll also show you how to work with brushes, colour shapers, droppers and swabs to create finer detail, as well as how to control when colours do or don’t blend. As well as paper, Desirée works with wood, ceramics, glass and plastic to decorate a wide variety of objects.

This is a thorough, but also enjoyable and hugely practical introduction to what looks like a really rather rewarding medium.

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Acrylic Paint Pouring || Tanja Jung

I’ll admit that paint pouring, which is allegedly “the latest technique to take the art world by storm” leaves me cold. This time next year, will we be looking back and wondering what it was all about? I think we will.

However, if you want to be taken by storm and are thinking of dipping your toe in the water, you won’t find a better introduction than this. Quite rightly, no previous knowledge is assumed and there are clear explanations of materials, working methods and – crucially – what happens and why. To achieve control, you really do need to understand your materials and preparation counts for a lot, saving countless messy and potentially costly mistakes.

The core of the book is a series of sixteen straightforward projects, each disposed of in four pages. These get you practising techniques as well as discovering creativity; the lack of complication and over-thinking mean you’re never going to feel lost. There’s no point in simply learning to follow paint-by-numbers instructions – you’re always going to be wanting to branch out on your own, which you’ll be ready to when you’ve finished here.

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Paint Pouring Workshop || Marcy Ferro

Paint pouring is The Latest Thing. How long it will continue to be popular, I wouldn’t like to say, but the results are striking if, perhaps, somewhat similar once you’ve got the basic principle. The effect is a cross between marbling and super-abstraction – I was reminded of the abstract books that were popular a few years ago.

Any new technique is about experimentation and there can be a lot of fun – and a lot to learn – in finding out about it. Familiarity is left far behind and new avenues and possibilities open up as rules and certainties vanish. Yes, it most precisely is a voyage of discovery.

In some ways, you might think that this is something you can more or less pick up for yourself and there’s a degree of truth in that. However, as with most things, a few hints and guidelines will save a degree of wasted time and materials – and maybe even a degree of mess!

There’s a good amount of information here, and plenty that’ll be of use to the beginner, which is pretty much everyone. There are also projects, although whether this is a field where you want to re-create someone else’s images only you can decide.

If this is something you think might be for you, this is not a bad way in.

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