Playing with Alcohol Ink
My local art group got together last week and did some experimentation with alcohol ink. If you haven’t tried alcohol ink before, it is a bit different than standard ink. Alcohol inks are more fluid and are dye based. Alcohol inks dry faster and are reworkable by adding more alcohol after drying. Alcohol inks can be used on non-permeable surfaces such as plastic, resin, glass or ceramic.
Here we are just getting started.
I had decided to use the alcohol ink on packing tape which ends up partially transparent and can be added to other artwork making layers. I started with the tape on freezer paper but then realized the tape wasn’t coming off the paper as I expected. I switched to parchment paper halfway through and that worked better. The photo is of the tape on freezer paper before I pulled it off. I am planning on using these on some of my book pages on the book that I recently started.
Here is Sally trying out alcohol ink on Kraftex (a man made fabric type material). The inks didn’t really work all that well on fabric or Kraftex as it was a very porous surface. You can definitely color the fabric but it really ends up with a very blobby look.
Here are more of Sally’s creations. The ones at the right and bottom are on photo paper. The photo paper works much better as it is non-porous. The chemicals in the photo paper also react with the ink and can cause some unusual and unexpected results.
Paula was trying applying plastic wrap and bubble wrap to the ink after it’s applied to photo paper. It takes much longer to dry with the plastic wrap and really needs more air or it doesn’t dry properly.
Next up, Paula tried adding sticks and salt to the photo paper first and then adding the inks afterwards. The salt has not been removed yet as these were still a bit wet.
I only got one photo of Louise’s pieces. Here she used a base of photo paper and then the bottom half is alcohol ink with some strings of plastic left to dry. Then the stamped motifs were added afterwards.
There are many ways that you can use the alcohol ink but it works best on shiny surfaces such as yupo paper, photo paper or tape. We had fun with our experiments. I will show you my tape on book pages once I get that far.
13 thoughts on “Playing with Alcohol Ink”
Cool effects. Never heard of alcohol ink before.
Thanks, it is different than paint and regular ink. Fun to try!
Beautiful effects! It must be fascinating to experiment with. Would love to see your pages when they’re done.
Thanks, it’s fun to play with. Nice transparency for layering. I will show how I use it eventually 😜
Cool, when you do it on the tape does it peal off the tape or is it really well stuck to it.? I wonder if you can thicken them to make them more paint like. but maybe that defeats the purpose.
Thanks Ann, it is like part of the tape and doesn’t peel off at all. I’m sure you could thicken it but that would probably ruin it’s effects.
I can’t really get my head round this medium. I think I need to see how you use it before I make my mind up on what to use it for. So, looking forward to seeing some of it on your book pages.
Ann
Thanks Ann, the alcohol ink gives the best result on non-porous surfaces. There are a bunch of YouTube videos showing how to use it. Book pages will be in a future post but who knows when?
Love it! How does your group keep coming up with these fab ideas to play with?
This post takes me back to a class I took a few years ago where we applied metal leaf to stiff card and then applied alcohol inks to the metallic surfaces. My favourite technique was to apply drops of turps (I imagine any paint thinner will work) to a freshly painted surface.
We don’t usually plan in advance but if one of the group sees an idea, we go with it. Yes, I think alcohol or paint thinner will definitely change the surface. I hadn’t thought of applying it to metal leaf already on another surface. I need to remember that for next time.
This is really interesting Ruth. I was playing with some walnut alcohol ink for one of my blog pieces. I’m not sure when I will run it at present. Anyway I used it on some tea bags which I then felted into wool. The colour disappeared during the felting process. It was a good lesson. I have used various colours of ink on nuno felt and the result has been lovely – still not sure what I will use the piece for.
Looking forward to seeing yours in your book.
Helene
Thanks Helene, I didn’t know that walnut ink and alcohol ink had been combined. I have used both but not a combination. I find that dyeing tea bags works better than inks. The color is not lost then.
Aha Ruth! Serves me right for not reading the back of the bottle when I bought it! I got it in France and didn’t do a translate on the bottle lol. It’s traditional shellac based ink. My mistake! and it’s a big bottle!