INK ART EVENT - ink artistic with Nick !

The first INK ART EVENT has come and gone. And there’s so much to say about it ! It was exciting, surprising and especially great fun. A big thanks to Nick Stewart and Janine Tholen-Florijn for sharing their passion with us.

On the day of the event, Nick Stewart, artist & art director, gave no fewer than 22 students a great opportunity to experiment with all sorts of ink and bleach. Of course, everybody was initially a little awkward and uncomfortable. I suppose that’s normal when you get people to come along to an ink workshop! But the ice was quickly broken, by which time Nick had them eating out of his hand :o)

Nick had prepared 4 tasks. The first was to observe the chromatography of black ink when it is put on wet paper. The students were then asked to apply the still semi-wet black ink motifs with a mixture of 50% bleach and 50% water. A nib is useful when it comes to creating patterns or drawings in black ink. It was also a great idea to use a little brush to drip or sprinkle the bleach mixture.

In task 2 the students were asked to put two ink colours on a wet surface and to combine that with task 1. The colour was changed by mixing and developing the chromatography of the two colours and adding a little bleach. As a result, some of the brown ink changed to green and the purple ink was transmuted into bright blue.

Paper was very much the focus of task 3. The heavier the paper, the more intense the chromatography. Nick brought to the event a stack of beautiful Bockingford watercolour paper from St Cuthberts Mill in the UK. The brown “Noodler’s Rome Burning” evolved from brown to a soft yellow hue and then to lilac-pink-rosé. After drying, an illustration or text was applied with the original ink using a nib or a paintbrush.

The final task was in many ways the most spectacular : the blending of different metallic sheen inks using an automatic pen. An automatic pen is simply a holder with a special metal tip that can be narrow or wide and holds ink like a calligraphy pen. Using Herbin Amethyste de l’Oural, Caroube de Chypre and Emeraude de Chivor, the students mixed and transfused the colours with thick and thin strips. Then, with a few spatters of bleach the colours were transformed to produce special effects. The ultimate result after drying was a magnificent riot of base colours, mixed colours, gloss and glitter and - the final touch - the bleach effect.

In just two hours, Nick had the students participating in a very exciting adventure in which there was something for everyone. Ink has incredible potential, a virgin territory with an almost infinite range of creative possibilities. And ink is relatively cheap. Also, you don’t need much to create an effect. All you need to make a really stunning work of art is GOOD paper, some bleach and a few tools. So thank you, Nick, for sharing all that with us.