"Evaporation" is the latest in the alcohol ink drip playing series as a reprieve from the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic...even as there is progress in protecting humanity against this pathogenic virus with broadscale vaccinations. The slow return to normalcy is gaining traction. Let's all get to the other side of this safely.

1. Evaporation
A beginner’s play in alcohol inks,
watercolor,
(non) synthetic papers,
and digital image editing…
Shalin Hai-Jew
May 2021

2. 2
Sod

3. 3
Ice Scape

4. 4
Oyster

5. 5
Coal

6. Evaporation
• This latest slideshow, “Evaporation,” is part of the alcohol ink drip
playing collection started in January 2021 as a distraction from the
particular phase of the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic. This is a
post-vaccination slideshow for me, so this is done without the sense
of ever-present direct threat. The risk level is lower given the
vaccination but still with viral variants circulating and some unmasked
folks who are not following the ordinances in-city.
• I have noticed that I do not necessarily have a particular mindset
when I start a work, but I fall into one fairly fast once I’ve started.
What is the mindset? Is it something of free flow? Laughter?
Learning incrementally? Experimentation? Tapping into the
subconscious?
6

7. Evaporation (cont.)
• What is constructive involves, of course, imagination and play. What would
happen if?... It helps to think visually, and there are ideas that arise…only a few of
which might get expressed.
• Visually, there is nothing wholly new under the sun. All the expressions are possibilities from
a finite set of possibilities.
• The materialia and the mind are limiting factors, but it is good to try for the occasional
impossible thing.
• Alcohol inks carry an inherent abstraction…but perhaps with waterproof tape and other
elements, I can introduce more control.
• Another approach is to use isopropyl alcohol (with high alcohol content) or a blending
solution to keep the alcohol ink wetter for longer to enable more time to move the inks
before the drying.
• There is re-wetting as well once the ink has settled somewhat into the synthetic paper.
• As I try to discipline myself to the alcohol inks, I can feel myself being shaped by the effort.
7

8. Evaporation (cont.)
• Why is it that “common art” by a beginner might be so emotionally
satisfying?
• A simple answer is that it is distractive. It helps take one’s mind off of
the present but not in unhealthy ways. It is about self-amusement. It
can be unthinking.
• Another answer is that there is something writerly about this process
for me, of trying to apply order and sensemaking to pseudo-chaos, to
put the world “right” for a brief and solitary moment.
• The work does not “solve” anything directly. It is not any “way out” of a
dilemma.
• Perhaps it is about self-expression, an insistence of personhood.
8

9. Evaporation(cont.)
• There is something appealing of a “visual ruse,” the illusion that tricks the eyes
and mind.
• There is an appeal to slowly developing skills. I am a little better able to think
ahead before I lay down some ink. I can anticipate some effects.
• I am leery also of overthinking this. It is sometimes wholly fine just to experiment and learn
to roll with whatever effects occur. (The whole point of using digital image editing to
“salvage” an alcohol ink work is to give myself the space to actually and fully experiment.)
• The digital image editing is not “generative” computational design of just code and the
software and the resulting visuals. The original seeding visual has an important say in what
possible through digital image editing…although extreme distortions are possible even one or
two iterations in.
• There is a social element, too, of using the works to speak to an outside audience
(whether dyadically, in small groups, or at larger scales).
• The conversation, though, can be diffuse, abstract, amorphous, polysemous, and sometimes
inchoate.
9

10. Evaporation (cont.)
• There is something analogical of the process of alcohol ink drip
playing and digital image editing to the world. In the first, timing and
speed are crucial elements. Serendipity affects the visual outcome. In
the latter, there is much more control to shape the work, to “salvage”
the art.
• In unusual times, there is such an allure of the normal, with inherent
dangers, in a pandemic. This is until the various asymmetries of
exposure and risk can be ameliorated.
10

11. Evaporation (cont.)
• I occasionally consume the audio-visual running narration of common
art artists on the Social Web. Sometimes, they will explain what their
objectives are and how they will achieve that. Only sometimes can
they explain the inspiration, in real time, as it arises. Or they just go
with a packaged narration.
• In every try, there are many ways to break an illusion. I know I am often only
seeing the version that has been revised and edited for the camera.
11

12. Evaporation (cont.)
• No one knows how the days will unfurl.
• As normal returns, I hope to still make some time and space for such
visual diversions. I want to keep the focus and energy for these
endeavors.
• Certainly, my motivations for continuing will be different ones than they have
been for the past four and a half months.
• The alcohol inks and synthetic papers still dazzle.
12

13. Evaporation (cont.)
• What might be less intuitive is that it helps to be in a constant state of
dissatisfaction, a costly dissatisfaction. I have to being willing to pay
the costs to try to achieve something that might provide some
satisfaction. With a low threshold for satisfaction, it is too easy to
stop the striving. (Feeling satisfied is overrated.) I want to feel
contrary.
13

14. Evaporation(cont.)
• To celebrate the U.S.’s advances in turning back the SARS-CoV-2 virus, I
went on a little shopping spree for alcohol inks and especially bought two
sets of brown alcohol inks in various intensities. An earlier work involving
an alcohol ink “potato” with green-yellow “eyes” (potato eyes) got me
obsessed with brown alcohol inks…and now, many many weeks later, I am
expecting something in the mail!
• This slideshow does include some works that used some sponges to move
alcohol inks around. I’m not understanding something about how to use
paintbrushes and sponges with alcohol inks.
• I will be spending a while to learn the basics with alcohol inks because control is so
elusive: how to create an edge, a texture, a gradient, a blend…to create something
visually coherent and cohesive…that still works when muted in the dry form…in a
standalone way (at least initially without any digital manipulation).
• Still, the main pleasures are those of the familiar, the “drip playing,” and all those
entailed.
14

15. On white synth paper
15

16. 16
Soil

17. 17
Core

18. 18
Breeze

19. 19
Surfaced Water

20. 20
Organic

21. 21
Into the Sky

22. 22
Bloom

23. 23
Sunlight

24. 24
Bounty

25. 25
Thirst

26. 26
Scrub

27. 27
Four Potatoes

28. On black synth paper
28

29. 29
Silence

30. 30
Stirring

31. On digital variants
31

32. 32
Glass

33. 33
Wound Channel

34. 34
Risk Appetite

35. 35
Isolate

36. 36
Garden

37. 37
Encroachment

38. 38
Forgetting

39. 39
Evaporation

40. 40
Inversion

41. 41
Egg Yolk

42. 42
Four Corners

43. 43
View from Ship

44. 44
Cloud Cover

45. 45
Cheese Wedge

46. 46
Play

47. 47
In Miniature

48. 48
Morning

49. 49
First Sight