Am I supposed to admit to tracing? I have no idea these days. But that's, in part, how I got from this:
Tree Grid Displayed
...to this:
Blister Tree in process
...To this latest work I made on my birthday and am still unsure about:
Layered tracings
This was made with multiple pages of ink on glassine (a transparent paper usually reserved for putting between book pages to protect them). Glassine and ink take to each other in this unbelievable way, the ink sits on top and is as dark as can be. This is true of sumi ink anyway. I'm still struggling with the colored acrylic ink and finding inks that do the same thing. I'm also trying to figure out how much transparency I want. The layering is interesting because the composing can't all be seen at the same time, it happens in the layers and suddenly when it's finally together it's a whole other thing.
As a very distractible artist, I have to decide if this is a new direction or just a temporary diversion. For now, I'll let it sit here and in my studio.