This slideshow is the next in the series of "alcohol ink" drip playing, which started January 2021. This continues to be a way to decompress, even as many of us are getting vaccinated as a global population. Eager as we are to get back to normal, it is important to be aware of the moment and reality. It is so important to learn...and to internalize the learning. I am struck by how the visuals are non-decorative (even indecorous) and mostly functional for my learning (about the inks and digital image editing). [This has been slightly revised from an earlier version uploaded two days ago to correct two misplaced slides.]

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

2. 2
Waterfowl

3. 3
Hatching

4. 4
Leafing

5. 5
Strange Sweet Fruit

6. 6
Skull

7. Wet Season
• “Wet Season” is a continuation of the explorations in “common art” in a
time of working from home in a transition point in the SARS-CoV-2 /
COVID-19 pandemic.
• The first stages of reckoning are occurring, it feels like, and there is more to come.
• Today, I’ll have had my first dose of the Moderna vaccine. And maybe I’ll
have another slideshow or two at the time of the second dose.
• I had to revise this slideshow because of a few misplaced slides.
• I think that the months and years after this will be about potent changes at
micro, meso, and macro levels. If not then (Late summer? Early fall?),
when?
• Hopefully, we’ll all be thoughtful about our decisions and not just run wild…just a
short while longer.
7

8. Wet Season(cont.)
• Those who care may notice that my color palette is changing. As I use up
favorite colors and cannot remix that hue with my existing alcohol inks, I
am merely left without. This just means I have different color palettes to
use.
• I have been experimenting with an underlayer of paint (usually white) as a
subtle embossment.
• Also, I’ve experimented with white overlays to create edging and lighter hues and
some translucence.
• I still like off-kilter visual effects.
• Digitally, I’ve done a little more compositing by combining visuals, as in the
cover image.
• Also, I’ve played a bit with selecting elements in an alcohol ink drawing/painting and
editing those for different visual effects.
8

9. Wet Season(cont.)
• Alcohol inks are about a world of limited tries, and then the moment
passes.
• I want to catch an elusive thread of inspiration and not let go…until I find its
expression and a little beyond. Again and again.
• I know I need to go to my paintbrushes, but the mind is not
sufficiently settled.
• In a philosophical sense, people so much love their imaginations and
fictions. The part of me that is a researcher dislikes that human love
of pet illusions. But this has been a time of reading both nonfiction
and fiction, and I understand the appeal. And when I hold up a
mirror, I see both impetuses in me.
9

10. Wet Season(cont.)
• In this batch, the scanner again went out and needed a new driver.
This was the first time that some light troubleshooting of the
technologies was needed.
• Simultaneously, the digital image editing software has been releasing
more AI filters. I’ve used a few of those as well (in labeled images).
10

11. On translucent synth paper
11

12. 12
Conceits

13. 13
Sun after Storm

14. 14
Sun After Storm
with Woodcut Print Filter

15. 15
Corn on Cobs

16. 16
Berries in Cream

17. 17
Recombinant

18. 18
Discoveries in Dirt

19. 19
Windblown

20. 20
All Alternate Outcomes

21. 21
Exploratory

22. 22
Backstroke

23. 23
Plumes

24. On white synth paper
24

25. 25
Transcoding

26. 26
Glory

27. 27
Roiling

28. 28
Reaching

29. 29
Microdot

30. On digital variants
30

31. 31
Dissipation

32. 32
Light Blowback

33. 33
Shelter

34. 34
Listening

35. 35
Night Ambush

36. 36
Awash

37. 37
Tattering and Healing

38. 38
Type O Positive

39. 39
Sectioning Orange

40. 40
Drift

41. 41
Forgery

42. 42
Core

43. 43
Together

44. 44
Iris

45. 45
Bracketed Time

46. 46
Catchment

47. 47
Conch

48. 48
Drip Play

49. 49
Flight

50. 50
Early Spring

51. 51
Hot Zones

52. 52
Duster

53. 53
In the Current

54. 54
Paradigm Shifts

55. 55
Electronic Typewriter Letter Ball