Purple Haze - a mistake turned to inspiration!

Purple Haze - a mistake turned to inspiration!, originally uploaded by biffybeans.

I inadvertently purchased the wrong color of fountain pen ink. This was from a private online sale, so there wasn’t an option to return it. This is Purple Haze, but my brain saw Purple Mojo when I picked it out. (I double checked – totally my mistake)

When I went to try it in a pen, it came out all watery, and I thought that the ink (still thinking it’s Purple Mojo) had been watered down. It’s way too light for me to use for writing, so a light bulb went on in my head and I decided to grab a watercolor brush and some paper to see how it would come out.

I tried it on three different kinds of paper.

Top left, is a Fabriano Classic Artist Journal. I just did a quick light wash, and the texture of the paper took the ink very well. Of note – I did this about half an hour ago, and the spots (droplets) at the top of the page are still wet. The rest is dry.

Top right, is Fabriano Hot Press Watercolor paper. Hot press paper is usually tricky to work with, as water tends to pool on top of the paper and not sink into the paper right away. I had difficulties trying to get different shades of the purple to reveal itself. In the end, it was either light or dark. Not much in between. Spots on this page are also still wet.

Front and center, is a Canson watercolor pad with cold press paper. This paper has a slight texture to it, unlike the hot press above which is super smooth. I think the ink worked best on this Canson paper – allowing for more delicate sweeping brush strokes, and many shades of purple to be revealed. Some of the spots on this one are also still wet, though not as wet as those on the hot press paper

So with my mistake, I learned that I now have one more type of media in the house to play with. Yipee! Thank goodness for Purple Haze!

07/09/08 Edited to add - I checked these this morning and found that the "spots" on all three were to some degree, still wet. That's interesting, because especially on the hot press paper, I really threw a lot of paint at it but it's just those little spots that didn't want to dry.