Create your own Alcohol inks

Posted by faessi1 on January 26th, 2020

Here is a quick tutorial on how to create your own Alcohol Inks.

• Unfortunately there is no white in this ink. And white ink is absolutely necessary with this technique, because otherwise the finished parts become much too dark. The three basic colours of the ink (cyan, magenta, yellow) mixed together result in black.  Without white ink the result would be a black lump.  Nobody wants that.  Yesterday then a dear friend gave me a glass with a totally dried up white ink.  She already wanted to throw it away.  Fortunately I was able to prevent that.   I then dissolved the dried up lumps in alcohol and it worked wonderfully. 
• Mix the resin according to the instructions (here I used Resin4Dekor - this is mixed 2:1, i.e. 2 parts resin + 1 part hardener) and mix well. I always let the mixed mixture stand for a few minutes until the bubbles from stirring have mostly dissolved again
• Silicone mould filled with clear resin - wait a moment until the remaining bubbles have risen and then eliminate them with the stick lighter. Just go over it with the lighter and the last bubbles disappear miraculously.
• Now pour the alcohol ink drop by drop into the mould. I always use alternating white and coloured ink. So one drop of white ink, one drop of colored ink, one drop of white ink, one drop of colored ink... You have to find a feeling for the number of drops per form yourself. Too many and the resin won't harden properly. Too few and it looks boring. In the end the result is always a surprise anyway.
• Cover the finished form with a plastic pot and wait at least 12 hours.
  
  

More you will find in this Alcohol Ink tutorial from malen-lernen.org.

Over time, you develop a feeling for which colours are used to achieve which result. But you cannot really control it exactly. Because of the alcohol in the ink it runs into each other and colour sinks down or not. In other words: It does what it wants. And the result is always a wonderful surprise.