When it comes to painting techniques that are satisfying to watch, you’ll be hard pressed to find something better than ink and water painting, the art of dropping a bit of of ink onto water-traced patterns and watching it spread.

French artist David Bayo, whose impressive pointilism portraits we featured last year, has been a lot of attention online for his ink and water painting videos for the past three years. In a 2016 interview, he revealed that he discovered the delicate art form while experiencing with various mediums to find the one that suited him best. After lost of practice, he was able to understand the interaction between ink and water and use the two to create incredible works of art.

Photo: Endre Penovac

“When I started my artistic journey, I tried to discover as many mediums as possible to find the one that would fit me best,” Bayo told Buzzworthy. “During this time I worked a lot with watercolor – a very similar technique to the one I use in my youtube videos, called water art. With a lot of practice and research, I was able to understand the interaction that occurs between water and ink in order to achieve this very unique style.”

Serbian artist Endre Penovac is also famous for his beautiful ink and water painting style, which he uses to create animals, flowers, fruits and even complex landscapes.

Bayo and Penovac are not the only ones using the oddly satisfying painting technique to get attention online, and I for one haven’t been able to track down its origin, but it’s definitely one of the most impressive things I’ve seen in a while.