Other teachers of art look on this maneuver of alcohol ink with contempt, since it by-passes half the grind they had been sweating years to achieve. you know that one,–controlled, careful, blending, patient, all that. Then one will apply a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and rub it on ink, tip the paper and this is the way the piece is made. finished. More info about this page!
Whenever you have it the first time, the feeling is that you are almost committing a crime.
The illusion is too preposterous to be real: you brush and dab not ink, but leave it to evaporation and gravity. With a few drops of alcohol ink, or a spray of light or one drop of alcohol and the pigment, synthetic paper will begin to spread out in soft organic forms. No overthinking. No tight control. Just movement.
And that is the thing that irritates some teachers. It is not that you are building the work, in a traditional sense of the term, but that you are reacting to it.
And you can pass, and have it prettier than you used two hours of your life to paint.
It is because, this breakage of alcohol ink is teaching otherwise. You give up in trying to take over the medium. You watch it. You adjust. Fold the piece of paper slightly, rub the paint off using a dry brush, perhaps blow on paper. Nice is nasty and nasty is nice. More like cooking without quantifying all.
I have witnessed novices scoring exceptionally well in few minutes. Never perfect, yet alive. That back and forth, effete look men and women acquire in old age? It just shows up.
Of course there is a hitch. It is not a way which will render you right. You can get clean edges, controlled gradients or realistic detail, but sooner or later you are going to bang on a wall. The ink is its master, and in case he only wants to make an ass of you. This is what makes the deal complete.
However in the case of backgrounds, abstract or even rapid color studies it is more or less addictive. You start playing around unconsciously. Alcohol concentration experiment. Apply ink on wet or dry spots. Observe the way colors drive each other.
At some point you have heard of some teachers who are irritated. It interferes with the usual learning pattern. You are already getting things, which are aesthetic things, which you have not merited, in the traditional sense.
Nonetheless, it does not render it wrong.
It only causes it to be different.
And a decent portion of fun as well.