Added some illustrations cut out from an old children's book, using the ink to glue them to the page.

The final piece, with some metallic paint pen detailing added to the illustration of the Gorgon.

Finally, I decoupaged in some pieces of woodcut illustrations from pages I had cut out of a fairy tale book that I used as a prop for an interactive narrative piece a decade ago. I've kept these pages around in a folder for years waiting for an excuse to use them for something!

What's the ink dried, added some more texture by scraping away sections, and then spraying water onto the ink and lifting it off with a paper towel.

Decoupaged several strips of paper onto the piece using the black walnut ink. Including a quote from hobbes's Leviathan

Black Walnut Ink still wet, on top of the bright acrylics.

Scraping away strategic sections of the overpaint, to reveal the bright colors beneath, then adding additional ink to deepen the dark sections.

More dark ink detail added in, once the previous layer had dried.

Added black walnut ink, and then played it around a bit with scraping off sections of it to reveal the acrylic beneath.

A blob of pink and red acrylic paint and abstract splotches.

Surrounding the pink and red acrylics with teal and blue acrylic

Some process photos because it's wild how this one evolved.

Started with very bright acrylics!

An abstract painting in pink and blue acrylic, overpainted with black walnut ink, and decoupaged with fragments of text torn from a book, and two wood cut illustrations from a children's fairy tale book.

I tried a slightly different style today because I had an idea for a new technique that I wanted to explore. My first time using acrylics with the ink, and holy shit, this opens up a deep possibility space!

#art #painting

"Black Walnut Ink is for external use only. Cauldron Fire Studios takes no responsibility for injuries incurred though improper application of our ink."

#signsIdidn'tthinkI'deverneedtoprint

it'a like any other liquid: you can drink anything at least once
😉

no, you can't drink it!

A laser cut wooden sign magnetized onto the pole of a pop up shade canopy. It reads cauldron Fire Studios handmade local ink art pottery, on a series of hanging tiles.

The Cauldron Fire Studios booth setup at the Earth Day festival, comprised of three tables with stretched spandex tablecloths on them. The leftmost table has a wide array of handmade pottery and ceramics on it, the center table has dip pens, black walnut ink, and inkwells, and the rightmost table has notebooks, journals, and fine art prints. In the back of the booth, underneath a brown pop-up canopy, is a tan sale with the words cauldron Fire Studios hanging on three banners, where each letter for each word is laser cut on a separate wooden tile.

The fine art print on display at our booth.

this is the first time selling my black walnut ink at an event where I've had MULTIPLE people ask if they can drink the ink and....I honestly don't know what that says about the crowd at this festival

but hey, people really seemed to like the ink, and pottery, and art! yay!
cauldronfirestudios.com

I feel like I'm so girlpilled that I honestly can't tell anymore...am I just projecting my own sapphic narrative onto this or am I simply*perceiving* the intense wlw vibes?!

That said, I know a LOT of lesbians who have season tickets for women's soccer because it's a good way to meet girls...🤔💭👭

Heck, that sounds like a perfect evening!

Several bottles of black walnut ink, with a cauldron Fire Studios logo on the front, the logo is a black cast iron cauldron, with flames rising out of it.

A table of handmade pottery, on risers.

Several of the fine art prints that we are selling, including a black walnut ink illustration of a medieval bell tower, a black walnut ink and watercolor painting of a golden chanterelle mushroom, a black wallet ink and watercolor painting of a chicken, with the words feed your neighbors, and a watercolor and black walnut ink landscape painting of a mountain range.

Several of the pieces of homemade pottery that we will be selling tomorrow, from left to right, a mug with turkey tail mushrooms growing out of it, a small figure of a woman with a half moon on her head, a large vase with an owl painted on it, a small mushroom kept tree person, and another mug with mushrooms growing out of it.

So if you're in the Peoria region tomorrow, swing by the Forest Park Nature Center and say Hi!

A series of laser cut wooden placards, hanging from a cast iron shelf bracket. They read: Cauldron Fire Studios: handmade, local, ink, art, pottery.

@drtanenbaumii.bsky.social and I have been prepping to sell ink, pottery, and prints at a local Earth Day festival this weekend, which has taken a lot of our bandwidth! I repaired our laser cutter (which has been out of commission for the last 3 years) and we made this dope sign for the booth!

I make art because I ENJOY MAKING ART! And because it's how humans connect. I cannot imagine asking a glorified spell-check to do that for me. What would be the point: language without human intention behind it is just pollution. Art without a person expressing themselves is just shapes. It's sad

And it undermines our ability to communicate with each other, but undermining the basis upon which we might trust that we're communicating with another human being. How do I know YOU aren't a bot? It's the difference between a wholesome meal and eating sand. Fills you up, but doesn't nourish you.

I've seen it materially diminish the cognitive and creative independence of my students. I've watched my friends and colleagues lose work to it. I've had my own work digested by it and shat out badly. It propagates my misinformation, drives people to psychosis, and destroys the environment.

Also, whether or not you want to admit it, using this tech DOES make you complicit in the collapse of the labor market for creative and knowledge workers. It DOES make you complicit in upholding systems that have put thousands of us out of work, devalued our expertise, and driven us to precarity.

They aren't *your* songs, though, are they? Not if you don't know how to write a song. It isn't *your* creativity. You aren't expressing anything of yourself in whatever is generated by these things: you are just an audience member saying "I like the way the automaton read my words." It's empty.

Coming into my feed to celebrate the tool that's destroying my ability to survive is...a choice...that you have made.
I studied AI in my PhD. I taught tech ethics for a decade. I know what I'm talking about when I say that genAI is an existential threat to humanity. Either it goes, or we do.

I'm never gonna turn down more work! Especially when it's a project I'm passionate about, with wonderful people!😁🫶

Thanks for the lead! It's not immediately clear if they're offering puberty blockers, but seems worth a call to find out.

Gotta say, as a professional researcher, writer, musician and songwriter, that there are plenty of ways to turn your poetry into songs that don't involve using the technology that stole the creative labor of thousands of artists and is now devaluing our work while badly regurgitating it back at us.

They're no fun at all! But it's deeply satisfying when you overcome things that would break most other folks.

Abled & healthy people have no idea how much harder we have to work—how strong we have to be, because what's the alternative? NOT hone yourself into a deadly foam wielding assassin? Hardly!

💯! The only reason I can afford to write my books, make my music, & draw my pictures is because my wife's job gets us 80% towards covering our basic needs.

Am I successfully bringing in the remaining 20%? Not yet. But I'm making things that feel necessary & I'm growing. I don't take it for granted!

Just imagine the freedom, as a creator, to be able to go: "What feeds my soul most? Who would I *love* to collaborate with?" A world where our ability to realize seemingly impossible creative dreams is gatekept only by our collective enthusiasm and bandwidth. Where it's not about income, but beauty.

This is exactly why we need UBI and universal healthcare! Think about how many brilliant and talented people there are out there who would work on these projects because they passionately believe in them, who are prevented from contributing because we're all scrabbling to subsist and survive. 💔😭

I've talked to a lot of people who seem to think that trans kids in blue states like IL or NY or CA are still getting the healthcare they need, but I assure you that's not the case.

Still can't get over how perfect this kitty is!😭❤️😻

Yes! I love that feeling! I spent the last 10 years slowly rebuilding myself after almost losing my life to chronic illness. Changed my wholeass gender in the process!😅

I've gone from being unable to stand for more than 20 minutes at a time, to participating in 4 hour long foam weapon larp battles!