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Ruth Carll's picture

Going even more Experimental ......

... or maybe just 'Mental'! Recently I gave a few people suggestions for playing more radically with color. I thought I should put my money where my mouth is! Often, when I am done with editing an image, I save it and then play with it more. Sometimes something interesting happens! I could never get these colors from my normal inks and I think they are fun - a little jarring - but also fun. I'm interested in your thoughts.

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11 Comments

The third and fourth are great, Ruth! Real drama and mystery. Among your best inks. Love the rich colour combo in the third.

The second is very surreal, but somehow a bit lurid for me.

The first one IS a bit jarring, the strong colour contrast somehow not cohering into a good composition for me (as if the anaemic one at left is being elbowed out by Big Blue) although there's nothing wrong with the colours themselves, or the combination. I wonder if it's your favourite, though, as you put it first.

Hmm... I've figured out how you did one, but only one. And I like the original (even) more. But keep your secrets!

Hey Chris! I actually didn't order them. The first is my least favorite but thought I'd include it as you never know! The third is may favorite of this batch but I am really digging the light pastel ones I posted last week the most! Wink!

I agree with Chris third and fourth are great keep up the good work Ruth

Hey Ruth, great photos. Not sure exactly how you are making these but I have an idea. Not sure if you want me to share my idea though, but it did give me an idea for a photo if you're not actually doing what I think you're doing.

The second photo is my favorite. I love the color scheme and for some reason it makes me think of Tails in sonic the hedgehog spinning before going through the red abyss below while the green reminds me of Dr Eggman.

Yes, I'm an adult. It just triggered a childhood memory. Thanks for that.

Well... I'm not great at secret keeping. This is inks in water then flipped in post. I have a bunch on my profile and spill the beans a little there about making them. I would love to see you try something and post! And - if what you thought is wrong, I would REALLY love to see what you do! Everything is Awesome... (Lego movie and I'm an old gal!)

I was in fact thinking of food coloring being dripped into water. Not sure if you know this or not, you probably do, but changing the temperature of the water will change the effect of the ink. I may play around with it sometime and if I do, I'll be sure to post my results.

When I first started, I used food color but it was too translucent. I added heavy cream to the food color to give it substance and that worked well. When I decided that I liked shooting these, I bought high flow acrylics and suminagashi ink. I look forward to your experiment!

I'm too old for Sonic the Hedgehog, but these always make me *feel* like I'm about to be attacked by a jellyfish.
TBH, I haven't quite figured out what my intellectual sense of aesthetics *thinks* of these (perhaps because of unfavorable associations with the lava lamps of my youth), but - Ruth Carll , your art is so viscerally compelling that I just now had to look over my shoulder to make sure there weren't any belligerent jellyfish about to sneak up on me.

HA! Great comment! :)

Nice work, third and fourth are my faves.

Thanks Joe!