Pages - Menu

Ways To Make Alcohol Ink Tiles

By Joshua Reynolds


Creatively inclined people have a lot of varied mediums from which to choose to explore their artistic visions. Every product will have a particular group of characteristics and be suited to certain surfaces. One project those who enjoy the look of marbling or the use of multiple tones to create a background, might find making alcohol ink tiles to be fun.

The facts that it is forgiving, quickly dries, is made with concentrated pigmentation, and is free of acid, are what make this product stand apart from others. It comes in a range of vibrant color that can be diluted to provide the versatility to achieve a scale of hues for different techniques. This medium is not intended for porous surfaces because it is liquid and would saturate the material and look muted.

To begin the project, one must first amass all the required materials and any embellishments they might wish to add. Ceramic pieces will be the working surface, and they come in many varied sizes and shapes, both in matte or gloss finish. The choice of the which specific items to purchase is entirely up to the artist as the techniques can be adapted to virtually any format and circumstances.

One may buy their inks singly or in kits with three colors that complement each other well. For enhanced versatility, additional products such as customizing pigmentation to create unique hues, metallic additives that can generate a polished or luminous appeal, and a blending solution, should also be gathered. Other tools for the project include refillable markers, straws, felt, clear coat sealer, canned air, gloves, and stamp pad applicators.

The first technique involves applying just a few drops of the desired colors directly to the felt attached to the stamp applicator. Once loaded, lightly dab the surface with the pad, repeating as often as necessary to achieve the target coverage or pattern. Keep in mind that by its very nature, felt will likely leave loose fibers behind, though this is nothing to be concerned over as they can simply be brushed away when the medium dries.

An alternative method is to apply the medium directly on the chosen surface, which allows better control of how much is used and precisely where it appears. These areas can be blended in various ways using compressed air, straws, gloves or fingers, or felt. To get a lovely fractured dispersal effect, droplets of blending solution can be applied to dilute the colors.

Another choice is to drop some of the medium into water that is placed inside of a wide container. The colors float, and when the artist submerges their tile into the liquid, it will collect the inks on its surface. This produces a beautiful marbling that one may opt to either leave in its natural state or use the tools to alter it.

Every technique's look may be altered as preferred, by dispersing or diluting the inks with blending solution, tapping with felt pads, using canned air or blowing through straws to move the colors around, or detailing it with markers. Due to the forgiving nature of the medium, the user can wipe remove and reapply it repeatedly until they are fully satisfied. In order to preserve the achieved look, it will be necessary to cover it with three thin layers of clear coat sealant.




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment