I had been planning on trying this for several months, but hadn’t got around to it until today.
This is going to be just a quick post of the process and materials along with a short video.
Materials:
Large tray.
Clear water.
Chinese brushes x 2 (not entirely necessary, but I have lots of them, and the idea is that the brush should hold lots of ink, but release it slowly.)
Chinese ink.
Clear water with a Surfactant solution, such as Photo-Flo, Ox-gall, pine resin.
Copier paper.
I also added and extra bowl of water to wash prints in and a piece of glass to dry each print on for a little while.
Process:
Fill the large tray with about an inch or two of water. Wait for the water to become very still! Load one brush with ink and the other with water (or water and surfactant). Tap the water alternately with each brush allowing the ink and water to spread. Use a fan (or your breath, you know the breath you have been holding in during most of the process!) to move the ink over the surface creating swirls and ripples. I quite liked the tree ring effect so didn’t move mine too much. Take a piece of copy paper and lay it down on top of the water, gently. Allow ink to soak into paper, lift and hang to dry or rinse in clear water. Carefully lift and allow it to dry. The paper is very fragile so be careful!
Easy peasy!
This website had lots of info for those who want to know more - www.suminagashi.com
Blog you later…..