Ink Blot Art

Ink blot art might seem silly and juvenile. It is silly and maybe a bit juvenile, but who cares? If you’re feeling stuck creatively, then it’s worth it to let loose and do silly things to snap out of it. There’s even an artist that I know of who gained a decent YouTube following doing daily ink blot monsters.

Stefan G Bucher, creator of Monster a Day videos.

His name is Stefan G. Bucher. He’s got twelve thousand subscribers and some of his 1-2 minute Monster a Day videos have more than 200,000 views. He’s nearing 3,000,000 total views for his collection of videos.

Not bad for “juvenile” art, right?

He doesn’t mention what supplies he uses, but I’ve done ink blot creations myself after watching his videos.

All I needed were the following items:

• • Black ink
  • Air duster
  • Black Sharpie
  • Black rollerball or black gel pens (for detail)
  • White gel pen (optional)
  • Colored markers or pencils (optional)
  • And paper, of course (thicker paper is better)

All of these items can be found in your local office supply store. Start off with a small amount of black ink on your paper, enough so that it doesn’t absorb into the paper right away. Then use your air duster to blow the ink into completely random trails. You’ll probably want to experiment with this. Short vs longer blasts of air, blowing the ink in different directions, etc. You can gently blot up some excess ink with the edge of a tissue.

Once the ink blot has dried, you can begin adding to it with your Sharpie or ink pen to create a variety of creatures. It’s all up to your imagination. The sky’s the limit here.

Some other items you can add, which might require an art store or market:

• • Colored ink
  • Artist pencils (graphite)
  • Toothbrush
  • Any other number of items you can think of that can help leave mark or manipulate ink

My advice in the beginning is to start off just with black ink and use tiny amounts of ink, small blobs. As you experiment, you’ll come to have a feel for how much ink to use. As you become more experienced, you can start layering black ink with colored inks (or colors minus the black) and you’ll be surprised at the beautiful ways that it combines when you use your air duster.

My attempts at ink blot art creatures.

Artist: Myra Naito

Artist: Myra Naito

Artist: Myra Naito

Unfortunately, I don’t have any video of me doing the ink blot art creatures, only the photos above. But you can always check out Stefan’s mini videos or his live stream. This method is great for unlocking your creativity because it’s far from precise. You can’t completely control the way the ink responds to being blasted with air. So, you’re forced to deal with the random nature of it.

In case you were having too much fun to notice, that’s the part that makes your creativity start working!

.

.