Pigments of Your Imagination by Cathy Taylor

Pigments of Your Imagination: Creating with Alcohol Inks by Cathy Taylor ISBN-13: 9780764347535 Paperback: 112 pages Publisher: Schiffer Publishing Released: March 28, 2015

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description from Goodreads:
Mercurial, versatile, inexpensive, and wildly colorful, alcohol inks are one of the newest mediums to hit the art community. Pigments of Your Imagination is your essential guide for working with alcohol inks, from choosing which inks to use for each project to learning how to maximize your artistic potential with a wide variety of fascinating techniques.

Using an assortment of materials and tools, learn how to work on a variety of surfaces, including paper, glass, metal, fabric, and plastic. Find inspiration for your own masterpieces in the step-by-step demos and guest artist gallery. From the beginning craftsperson to the professional artist, Pigments of Your Imagination offers a broad insight into the expansive world of alcohol inks.


My Review:
Pigments of Your Imagination is an art technique book on how to use alcohol inks. This book clearly explained how to make your own unique art by getting to know how the ink can be used and manipulated. The step-by-step pictures were clear, and the captions contained enough information that even a beginner can understand what to do. The author favors a "loose, playful" art style, but one of the guest artists did explain how you can do more detailed, realistic flowers.

The book covered what alcohol inks are and the supplies you'll need. In terms of specialized equipment, you could get away with just the inks though she did suggest some special paper. She also used common art supplies like a round brush, masking fluid, and acrylic gloss medium. She provided a series of step-by-step projects that have you try out different ways to apply the inks and different tools (like a drinking straw) that you can use to get certain effects. She continued with projects using wax paper, stencils, glues and pastes, laminate, masking fluid, and more to create raised textures or reserve white areas.

She then had projects on how to apply the techniques we've learned to create specific types of art: landscapes, seascapes, dreamscapes, and cityscapes; and then detailed to abstract flowers and some animals. She had projects on how to create batik, madras, marbled, and swirl effects for paper and fabric, as well as a "tie-dye" pattern and stamping patterns for fabric. It ended with projects involving acrylic skins, aluminum, ceramic tiles, mixed media collage, marbled papers, and simple monoprinting. She also included a gallery showing a variety of ink art.

This book make me feel confident that I could do the projects and that it'll be fun, too. Most art books don't leave me feeling that way, so I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in learning the basic techniques for using alcohol inks.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Link to the book on the publisher's website which includes a Look Inside feature.