More Adventures in Ancientness, (if that's a word), in Solving The Unwelcome Pinkness of Black and in the Production of Spikes

Well, here I am, taking a deserved break in the laying of tiles and grouting of same, and taking the opportunity to share some of my recent creations with you.

But first, I would like to say a special 'hello' to the interestingly large number (percentage wise, pertaining to this blog) of Russian readers. ;-)

I'm told that 'Privet' is the correct greeting. Though in English it is the name of a type of shrub largely used for garden hedging. . . .
There are lot of excellent polymer clay artists in Russia, as any time spent on Facebook will show you. So - Privet!

Ancient look blue simple beads - SOLD

OK. 'Ancientness'. I am having fun playing with all sorts of things that can make the surface of a bead look ancient and crusty. Mainly it involves using stuff you can use as a barrier between inks and paints, and which will then wash off in water, leaving an interesting random pattern.
Well, that's all the handholding you get I'm afraid. Have a play with anything you have lying around that fits that description and see what you get ;-)

This sort of thing

Now for the unwelcome pinkness of black. I mentioned in a previous post about the tendency of black alcohol ink to revert to a pinky purple brown when either diluted a bit, or when the brush starts to run dry ( if you use a brush to apply it instead of just using the dropper/nozzle on the bottle).

It fades into pink purple when baked too.
Also varnish can kind of leach out an extra bit of pinkness if applied too enthusiastically.

This is a pain, as it turns the edges of the black and white into a purply pink smear instead of a lovely clean demarcation between black and white, so I have been messing about with mixing several colours to get a better, non-pink black. (I could use black acrylic paint, but I want the particular surface effects that alcohol inks give.)

Dark brown pinky black with pinky smears. . .

Dark blue and dark brown seem to be the best colours to mix, as the brown compensates for any purpleness in the blue, and the blue compensates for the redness in the brown. I tried adding a small amount of green too, as black is technically the sum of every colour. Well, in theory anyway.
Whatever, it worked pretty well. See below.

How much more black can they be? The answer is 'none more black'. . .

I hope you got the Spinal Tap reference ;-)

I have also made some more of my popular turned style spikes. I probably need to explore some different colours next though. Not that there is anything wrong with browns and blue greys ;-)

Anyway, until next time,
best,
Jon x