Birth of a new obsession

Inspired by posts I saw on Deb Lacativa's blog, I finally spent a little time playing with sharpies and alcohol. I didn't have too many colors to work with, so today I stopped at the local CVS drug store, and found a pack of Bic permanent markers with 12 colors... woo-hoo! Here are my first experiments:

On this first one, I tried (starting from the lower left and going clockwise) Sharpies, some other felt tip pens (forgot the brand), the Bic pens, Sharpie neons, and some Sharpie highlighters. First I drew the designs, then I painted alcohol over them.

On this one, I used the Bic pens and started out misting the alcohol over it... it didn't bleed very much, so I went over the design with alcohol and a paint brush.

This is Bic pens and painted on alcohol.

So far, I'm just doodling... no pretermined design or layout in mind. The first set of experiments was done on cotton muslin, undyed. The next two were on a cloth that had some (very little) dye. I also want to try this on a t-shirt to see how it holds up... may have to sacrifice one of my undyed shirts for experimenting on! I can see where this might take over my life... something about the intensity of color and organic designs just sucks me in! Thanks again, Deb!