Thursday, September 6, 2018

Things You Should 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 basically work best on non porous surfaces, as you can get the most effect from it. They are usually not used on porous surfaces such as paper or wood, but sturdier and thicker surfaces like ceramic, glass and plastic. In essence it needs to be able to glide across the surface and not seep into it.

They come in general three groups of colors, being light pastel colors, standard regular colors or jewels, or earthy dark colors. The lighter colors will tend to spread out more than darker ones as they contain more alcohol. The darker colors, which contain more dye, will tend not to spread either. In essence the lighter colors will dry up faster than the darker ones due to the higher content.

As you are just starting out, do not go full blast and buy every shade of colors for this kind of medium.in fact there are quite a number of starter packs available in the market with starter colors. Also just buy one half ounce bottles if you can for they still do last quite a long time. Buying darker colors will also save you more money for you can just mix it with alcohol to get the lighter variants.

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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