My favorite way to eliminate the often paralyzing fear of "ruining" "good" paper is to just paint on any and all junk mail that comes into my house. Higher end catalogs are great for this, they don't use slick, thin paper (and even that gets used in collage or as a desk cover for other projects) and they're already bound for you. Just add marks! Carry it with you. Scan the pages you like. Cut it up later for making other art. It's "just" junk mail, so there is literally no pressure. I have HUNDREDS of these type of things and I run across them all the time, forgotten, in some old backpack or purse or drawer and it's a treasure to look through them again, and add new marks, paints and words.
I was listening to the song ‘Devil Doesn’t Bargain’ by Alec Benjamin (HIGHLY recommend by the way!), and I thought ‘hey! This OC matches the vibe of this song.’ And decided to write the lyrics behind him. For future reference, that takes far too long, but it turned out pretty well!
I’ve been doing ink doodles somewhat like this since the early 80s but I have to give a shout-out to Visoth Kakvei for greatly influencing my style the last couple of years.
