I never met a medium I didn't like. 

Well, except for that weird chick on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  All I can see in my head now is a lady puffing on a fake cigarette and saying, 'Your husband will never fulfill you completely'. 

But really looks more like this in my opinion.

Ok, let's get rid of that image and conjur up some other colorful inspiration.

I've been spelunking in the studio like a madwoman since noon yesterday, and kept coming across things that I wanted to play with instead of organizing.  Right?  So I told myself I could play with ONE THING before bedtime.  Seriously, I need that kind of work/incentive system.  The proverbial carrot on a stick.  Or perhaps I should just ask Jen or Laura to stand in the corner wielding a ruler until I get this done…

So the first evening's incentive plaything was my stash of Viva Decor Marbling Inks.  Although I cannot decipher the German product label on my inks, I'm pretty sure from how they work that these are an alcohol-based ink.  And I've worked extensively with this type of product from Ranger and Copic, so I'm just going to focus on the difference.  Dare I say…

Viva la difference!

This ink system has more vibrance and opacity than the other inks.  It takes less product to cover an area completely.  The metallic and white ink have even more opacity so you can get a real contrast going with them, as with the little bit of gold that I sponged on top of the topmost trio of hearts.  The white ink allows you to tint the other inks (lighten the colors) to achieve a more pastel color.  I did this on the blue heart in the foreground, dabbling a little on with my sponge while the blue ink was still wet.

It also has more working time.  Although it dries within several seconds, you can manipulate the inks with more control.  For example, let's look at the pink heart in the foreground.  Once the pink ink had dried I dripped a bit of white ink onto the surface and manipulated it with a brush to create the interior heart shape.  Then I took a bit of gold ink onto a palette and brushed around the edges of the heart with a small fan brush.  If you use a light touch and minimal rework it retains brushstrokes too.

The surface I used for the hearts is a simple coated chipboard. You can use this ink on more surfaces than you expect, including clay and plaster.

This ink has several advantages over its competitors.  The only disadvantage is that it only has 13 colors.  But then again, it's nice to be able to get an entire color spectrum and do your own color blending.  Sometimes less is more!