I was at the local art club yesterday and the subject was waves/water. I can't do my normal acrylic ink paintings at the club, as we are only there for the morning and the inks take absolutely ages to dry (normally overnight) and I have to transport it back home by car.... So I thought about Dr Ph Martin's Hydrus Fine Art Watercolours I have. I haven't really used them much because they dry too quickly for my normal technique - so maybe this was the answer here....
Anyway, had a morning playing around with them, throwing the medium at the page (thank goodness I use thick watercolour paper - 425gsm Bockingford NOT - so not too much buckling!) Not really a finished painting, but it shows that there is definitely potential in these - great when travelling as they are in neat bottles, dry quickly and still give me the vibrancy I need.
Being watercolour based, rather than acrylic, they don't flow in quite the same way (ie they are absorbed by the paper more quickly) but as long as you keep the paper tilted a bit to encourage dribbles and add more clean water to aid flow, you can get some great marks. Obviously masking fluid and salt etc work beautifully with this medium - it is basically just intense liquid watercolour. The only shame is that I have a limited selection of Hydrus colours compared to the acrylic inks. I bought all that were available at the time - just gone online to find that they now have 36 colours! Going to have to investigate this further, as I am sure a few more colours will help.....
OK - having just made that last comment brought to mind something I posted on Facebook recently - think this applies to me! I am hopeless in an art shop - but then I do like to experiment with mixed media and so trying new products can often mean coming up with exciting results...
