"Frost" is the latest in the alcohol ink drip playing series, which was started a year ago today...as a relief against the tensions from the pandemic. This is being reposted since the prior version represented three visuals awkwardly, perhaps because I went with a compressed .pdf. The new full-screen depiction of the slides on Scribd's SlideShare is wonderful.

1. Frost
A beginner’s play in alcohol inks,
alcohol markers, crayons,
(non)synthetic papers,
light compositing (w/ digital photos),
and digital image editing…
Shalin Hai-Jew
Jan. 2022

2. 2
Decorated Sky

3. 3
Sandstone City

4. 4
Child Lines

5. 5
Below Frost

6. 6
Periwinkle Flower

7. 7
Blooms
(in b/w)

8. 8
Fresh Starts

9. Frost
• “Frost” is the current slideshow in the alcohol ink drip playing series,
which was started to provide stress relief and distraction starting the
second year of the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic. This salve still
works even in a time when lockdowns are no longer de rigueur.
• This work is predicated on the idea that inartful experimental
paintings may be salvaged using digital image editing software. This
has provided a reason for putting several software programs through
their paces towards full learning. (Most of us only use software at
partial capacity, not full. I want to work towards using several
software programs at full capacity, if possible.)
9

10. Frost(cont.)
• At the new year’s start, I spent time cleaning the alcohol ink bottles
by dunking them into bowls of isopropyl alcohol, unsticking the tops,
and refilling the squirt bottles with the rubbing alcohol.
• The inks stayed in their boxes for a day or two and now have spread out over
the worktable, near at hand, available for inspiration.
• There is a bit of a production line for this endeavor: a stack of various
paper types; the inks, the crayons, the alcohol ink markers, the
watercolors, the colored pencils; the scanner; paper towels; isopropyl
alcohol and glass cleaner; a paper shredder; an envelope for some of
the works; and the laptop for the digital.
10

11. Frost(cont.)
• These endeavors are not only about exploiting materials and
technologies, and the created works, but they are about creating a
kind of discipline in the self. There is power in self-dissatisfaction so
that one continually strives and changes. (There is no harm to the
self if one does not take the dissatisfaction personally.)
• There is the drip-drip (if you will) of incremental learning. I am a year in and
am not even close to full knowledge. The upside is that this is all very fun for
me.
• The splurge here is really costly time (the cost of materials is not even close).
• If you think my leitmotif is of the sun and flowers and round rocks,
those are just the easiest forms to create at present with my limited
skill level. I hope to one day display more complexity.
11

12. Frost(cont.)
• Only recently have I realized that SVGs can be created using XML and
that drawn SVGs have XML code equivalencies. The layers in XML-
coded SVGs work in the opposite direction as in Photoshop and
Illustrator: the coded object listed first appears on the bottom of the
stack, not the top in XML SVGs. In the digital image editing tools, the
background layer is on the bottom, and the objects stack from there.
The objects on top predominate over those below, in stack order.
• SVG is an open-source format for vector graphics.
• SVG has built-in animation potential with Synchronized Multimedia
Integration Language (SMIL).
12

13. Frost(cont.)
• In this slideshow, some original photos have been used for
compositing. The photos are like “found” art, with particular
available lines and textures and colors. These photos can help
provoke the use of different techniques.
• Some of the works are re-wet ones from older paintings stored from
last year.
• Some works are not shown in analog format because they don’t quite
work in that state. Ideally, the works would function in every state.
13

14. Frost(cont.)
• Some may recognize shapes (stencils) from older shape sets in Adobe
Photoshop. Glad to have seen a YouTube video about how to bring
those back. These work well as clipping masks for particular cutouts.
The Grime Vector Pack looks especially interesting.
• One work uses desaturation, which is a more powerful tool that I’d initially
realized. Desaturation works to mute color, which can be distracting and
excessively over-the-top. Colors can compete with the visual elements that
one wants to highlight.
14

15. Frost(cont.)
• Finally, these works are actually mostly high-res ones (.pngs), even if
they had in-between states as vectors, but slideshow sharing site
limits the visual qualities (necessarily, given the need to enable the
sharing of many slideshows with efficiency and speed and integrity).
In the real, full-screen, each work has many more visual details that
are cool, IMHO.
• I found the “Potato with Eyes” (just “Potato” prior, I think) in a former stack of
paintings and remembered I’d scanned it badly prior. So I included a better
scanned version in this slideshow. I adore this work. The quality of the
alcohol inks in expressing both the potato and the eyes is weirdly cool.
15

16. On white synth paper
16

17. 17
Serene

18. 18
Thickening

19. 19
Light Waves

20. 20
Tunneling

21. 21
Profusion

22. 22
Flourishing

23. 23
Homes

24. 24
Disruption

25. 25
Mist

26. 26
Conscience

27. 27
Purple Bloom

28. 28
Coexistence

29. 29
Starch

30. 30
Dreams

31. 31
Potato with Eyes

32. 32
Welcome Spring
(redux)

33. 33
Greens

34. On translucent synth paper
34

35. 35
Dispersion

36. On black synth paper
36

37. 37
Night Tree

38. On digital variants
38

39. 39
Fleeting Scent

40. 40
Leafless
(diptych)

41. 41
Driving Rain on Boulders

42. 42
Tentacles

43. 43
Afternoon Picnic

44. 44
Mine

45. 45
Buoyancy

46. 46
Blades

47. 47
Glimpse

48. 48
Raw Honey

49. 49
True Blush

50. 50
Fatigue

51. 51
Scribble

52. 52
Global Rain 1

53. 53
Global Rain 2

54. 54
Lost Fruit

55. 55
Water through Netting

56. 56
Under Ice

57. 57
Rain Shower

58. 58
Pounding

59. 59
Melt Point

60. 60
Crow’s Treasures

61. 61
Rising Seas

62. 62
Directions to
Nowhere

63. 63
Thin

64. 64
Exchange

65. 65
Yarn