Friday, 7 September 2018

What To Know Before Learning How To Use Alcohol Ink

By Daniel Allen


Art and productivity are secondary innate attributes of man. Almost everyone will want to be creative at one point or another in their lives with many different kinds of mediums. One of these mediums is alcohol ink and yo may be wondering how to use alcohol ink for your next project. Before tackling the methods of how to use this type of ink, it may be a good idea to know what it really is first, and its many properties.

This kind of medium is one that is dye based. Being dye based, whatever colorant gives it the pigment it exudes, is already fully dissolved in the liquid suspension. This means that it does not need to be shaken to get it ready, and can be used out of the bottle right away. This is of course in exception to the inks which have metallic and pearl particles.

Since the main suspension base is alcohol based it will mean one thing. This will dry up very quickly depending on the color, anywhere from a very few seconds to almost a minute, once that it touches whatever that you are using for your creative project.

These inks must always be used on surfaces that they can glide across. This means that non porous and sturdy surfaces should be used such as ceramic, glass or plastic and not porous ones like paper or wood. Paper and wood will absorb the ink and the real magic of this medium will not be seen.

These inks come in three groups of colors, being light colored paste ones, regular jewel or standard colors and also earthy dark color tones. Light colored inks will tend to spread out more when used due to the higher alcohol content and darker colors tend to clump up more due to it having less. In essence because of this higher content of alcohol, the lighter colors will tend to dry up faster. T

If you are just starting out with this medium do not go all out and and buy all the colors in the spectrum. There are small starter packs in one half ounce bottles and four ounce bottles. One half ounce bottles are really the best value for money as they can last for quite a long time. Also you can save more money by getting darker colors for you can dilute them to get lighter shades and hues.

When starting out with this medium it is important to know that the inks used on the surface will tend to push each other apart as alcohol does not mix. Thus if you have a design in mind you might take into account the use of colors and how to put it together for your desired effect. In simpler terms, the effect that you will get with this medium will be something akin to a stained glass window, where colors are not mixed but in fact very much delineated to give an overall effect.

Once dry the artwork you create will be waterproof and resilient. However if it does come into contact with alcohol again, the pattern will run and ruin your original image. Thus once finished keep it away from alcohol based liquids.




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