"Froth" is part of the common art series started in January 2021 around the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic. What a difference a half-year makes! This only has a few alcohol ink drip paintings, a few digital variants, and the rest are visuals created from born-digital imagery (often from social network graphs). In the spirit of going with the inspiration, I created a lot of visuals from these other works and tried a few new things.

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

2. 2
Heatwave Cityscape

3. 3
Untrammeled

4. 4
Spinoff

5. 5
Connections

6. 6
Parasites

7. 7
Night Sky

8. Froth
• “Froth” is the latest in the alcohol ink drip playing in the SARS-CoV-2 /
COVID-19 pandemic series. Even as life returns to some form of
pseudo-normal, the losses continue. The world will not be out of this
for some time yet, even if humanity works at highest efficiency.
• In the popular vernacular, something frothy is something superficial,
something hyped. It is also delirious fun.
• It’s not that you dream in alcohol ink, but close.
• To be clear, this series does not refer to any form of consumable alcohol.
• Ironically, this slideshow is mostly non-alcohol-ink works. More on
this in a bit. (You always go with the inspiration.)
8

9. Froth (cont.)
• This effort is about self-expression in a time of global stress. It is about
visual play.
• Not only am I seeking learning in both the art materials and digital image
editing, but I am seeking the novel. I want viewers to use their visual
knowledge to try to make sense of what they are seeing, even the visual
stunts and illusions and plays.
• It turns out that we do still have points of visual reference even for the (delightful)
strange.
• There are lines, textures, and shapes, and the human visual system makes sense
(even if there is less sense to be made).
• The titles are suggestive. For any work though, there likely can be any number of
textual titles applied.
• I still have a “generous pour” that I need to better control.
9

10. Froth (cont.)
• This slideshow has a new section at the end: born-digital variants.
This was added simply because there is room to explore and learn
about these fabrications.
• Turns out, simple seeds from digitally created visuals can still evolve
into cool visual outputs.
• It’s cool to think of these as digital ephemera.
• Some of the seeds were from prior social network graphs that I made
using a then-free software tool. The graphs were created using social
media data extracted through third-party tools.
• These bring up old and long-enduring data obsessions.
10

11. Froth(cont.)
• The topical content is comprised of various esoterica.
• In terms of progressions, there are moves from the analog to the
digital.
• There is certainly space to move from the digital to the analog. People do
print various visuals (turning the digital to analog) and then apply various
artful treatments to those.
• There are moves from the simple to the complex, and vice versa.
• Each work is from trial and error, and each a culmination or a series of
commits.
• The risk for me is to manipulate the visual too much. On the other
hand, impatience to arrive at a fixed state can be negative, too.
11

12. On white synth paper
12

13. 13
Pollen

14. 14
In the Glen

15. On digital variants
15

16. 16
Discovery

17. On born-digital variants
17

18. 18
Pinpoint

19. 19
Patterned Flowers

20. 20
Triggers and Switches

21. 21
Bowl

22. 22
Half Shells

23. 23
Social Network Bubbles

24. 24
Drop

25. 25
Circuit Board

26. 26
En Masse

27. 27
Ball Toss

28. 28
Thrum

29. 29
Missing Slice

30. 30
Carapace

31. 31
Stir

32. 32
Rising Bubbles

33. 33
Code

34. 34
Necklace

35. 35
Circle

36. 36
Hanging Flowers

37. 37
Complex Dominoes

38. 38
Fire Bloom

39. 39
Pinned

40. 40
Scan

41. 41
Seduction

42. 42
Compartmenting

43. 43
Plastics

44. 44
Migratory Pattern

45. 45
Prototype

46. 46
Scaffold

47. 47
Arrested Flight

48. 48
Plenty

49. 49
Mechanical Petals

50. 50
Flower Fancy

51. 51
Attraction

52. 52
Social Interweave

53. 53
Confetti

54. 54
Netting

55. 55
Neon Luck

56. 56
Blueprints

57. 57
Pins and Needles

58. 58
Waves

59. 59
Together

60. 60
I Deal First