To form a highly detailed image of high image quality generating no blurr on a recording medium of every kind at a high speed by stably flying a very small amt. of an ink droplet at a high speed even if highly viscous ink is used without increasing energy consumption.

Ink l is uniformly held on an ink carrier 2 having a flat surface patternwise. A part of the ink carrier 2 is heated according to image data to boil the ink l at the interface of the ink carrier 2 and the ink l or in the vicinity of the interface of them and the ink l is allowed to fly from the surface of the ink carrier 2 by the pressure of the air bubble generated by the boiling of the ink l. At the same time, electrostatic attraction is allowed to act on the ink by an electric field generating electrode part 5 and the ink l is bonded to a recording medium 7 arranged so as to leave a minute gap with respect to the ink carrier 2 to form an image.