Playing with Alcohol Inks

 About a year before our relocation alcohol inks came into my craft stash.  On my own, I made no progress using these inks.  I had created a few backgrounds but they had not been quite what I had hoped.  Mary Polanco is a YouTube Creator (Mary Polanco Designs) and associated Facebook Group (MPD Community).  She recently posted that she would be conducting a class on the use of alcohol inks and I enrolled.  

The day of class I assembled the suggested tools which included alcohol inks, specialized, non pourus papers, a manual blower and 91% alcohol or commercially prepared blending solution.  In the past, I had added these inks to alcohol gel applied on gel plates and pressed watercolor paper or card stock onto the gel plate rather than putting the liquid ink directly onto paper and floating it around in the liquid alcohol or blending solution.  Somehow I cannot help but believe that using the gel this way gave poorer results.  Here is a sample of what I came up with as a result of the class:

The upper 4 were inks applied to the back side of photo paper and the lower 4 were created using the front side of the same Canon photo pater.  Over all the backgrounds created on the back of the photo paper were much more to my liking.  They were more difuse with special effects that arose from spraying alcohol over the images after they had dried.  I did use a less concentrated alcohol sprayu (80% rather than the 91% or 99% as was recomended.  

Many creaftspeople recommend using Yupo paper when working with alcohol inks, but that is jusst out of my price range.  Photo paper is cheeper and more readily available.  However along the way I have found some Brea Reese brand Waterproof Panels in after-market shops.  Most of the ones I have are smaller (3" x 3") and seem a bit thick for cards, even though they state on the label that they compare to Yupo.  I was very pleased with the results of adding alcohol inks to one of these panel.  

Overall the look of the Yupo knockoff was exceptional and much better than when using the photo paper, expecially on the shiny side. 

Cutting out shapes of the photo paper was easy enough.  The presentation indicated that certain plastic or synthetic papers don't cut as well as other papers.  I was able to easily cut a circle from the photo paper using a circle die.  I glued a diecut sentiment directly onto the circle cut from the photo paper.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the card created from my efforts.  Next time, T'm sure.  

Meanwhile I tried another technique also suggested in our class:  I stamped an image onto the paper.  I tried first with Versa Fine Permanent Ink in Vintage Sepia.  Because it is a slower drying ink, I attempted to speed up the drying process using a heat gun set on a low heat setting.  The pigment ink didn't completely dry and the effect whas not what I wanted, even after it was die cut.  It wasn't bad, but not what i wanted.  

The images on the left were stamped with VersaFine Pigment ink Vintage Sepia and Trinity Stamps Fern-tastic stamp and die set (top image, left) and a leaf from Altenew's Beautiful Day stamp and die set (lower left).  The  Outline is barely visible and it took a VERY long time to dry.  Even using a heat gun didn't help much and the photo papter curled quite a bit.  I have entertained the thought of using a black permanent marker to trace the lines of Sepia ink in an attempt to improve the finished product, but I have not done so at the time of this posting.  Attmept #2 using the largest pumpkin in Spellbinders Paper Arts's Charming Pumpkins clear stamp set and fussy cutting it out used a die ink (Altenew's Crisp die ink in Permanent Black) was a much better outcome.  All in all, I don't think I'll be using this technique in the future.  

During the Class Video, Mary showed an example of a card that had a cut-out section of regular card stock mounted over the alcohol ink background.  I found that MOST appealing and decided to follow her lead by cutting out some butterflies from my own stash (Spellbinders Delicate Butterflies Cutting Dies).  Alone the cut-out section looked weak.  So I went back and used the cutting dies that created the butterfly wings outline and body.  That went much better:

Of course there was the portion of the cut-out that was removed.  So I also made the butterfly wing outline for the 2 of them by cutting from the alcohol colored photo paper.  They weren't BAD, but one was so light in color that it, too looked washed out.  The other was of enough of a contrasting color value that it was as improvement.  These are seen here:

Based on this, I made other cut-outs of the basic form from one of the alcohol ink backgrounds that had bolder colors and the wing outlines from the darker brown used in the first example.  These turned out to be the best examples of this technique so far.  

 

These should compliment any sort of greeting card that I might make in the future.  

I did want to make one last attempt of die cutting photo paper colored with alcohol inks.  This time I used an intricate rose cutting die by Moments.  The most telling aspect of cutting this out was attempting to line up the cutting die to allow for the greatest amount of color on the rose pedals and the green areas for the leaves.  So the colors were somewhat off and it was a simple matter to dissolve a drop or two of the green alcohol ink into a watercolor mixing well with a few drops of the 91% alcohol mixative.  Then this could be applied onto the cut-out intensifying the colors in the best places.  This was an appropriate way to finish out the item for use on a later card also.  

The rose on the left was cut from the photo paper and re-touched with alcohol ink.  The rose on the right was cut first from green card stock then from pink card stock.  The pink die cut was trimmed to be only the pedals and buds and then that part was glued over the green die cut at the position of the flower and buds.  Either would make a lovely addition to a feminine card for many occasions.  Quite a good run on playing with Alcohol Inks!

A NOTE:  I do not receive any compensation for the items mentioned in this post.  This is merely for my personal recording and as reference to anyone who reads these posts.

 

Transitions

 After spending a goodly amount of time renovating the Art Barn to make it more weather-proof and comfortable, we find that we are moving.  The process has begun:  we have our site selected, the land has been tested for septic and water systems and we have our building permit.  We have been packing like crazy and that also means purging unwanted items from EVERYWHERE!  

One of the first things I came to realize was that many of my acrylic paints were only about 1/2 used and truly were not my primary media.  Paper crafting was accomplished either with alcohol, dye or pigment inks or watercolor.  All things acrylic that had not been used for a year or more was packaged up and sent to the local charter school that concentrated on the arts.  In addition to the ancrylic paints, colored pencils, some of the less costly or professional brushes and papers for drawing or coloring were included.  In today’s environment, teachers often have to provide their own supplies for the classrooms, and I was met with gratitude from the school when I appeared with several boxes of the supplies.

Yarns and threads, patterns and instruction books, tools that will have uses later on, paper materials, stamps and dies have been (for the most part) grouped and put into storage.  My concern for my inks, dyes and paints is  that once stored in an unseated location, they might freeze.  While cleaning out the garage, I found a thick, styrofoam container that had once held a gift of fresh seafood that our children had sent for a gift.  This I packed with all the alcohol inks, resist sprays and bonding solutions.  Alas it wasn’t enough!

Through persistence, similar packaging solutions have been found by appearing at local pharmacies and grocery stores which also receive shipments of medicines or seafoods that require being kept cold in transit.  The efforts were well worth it! Next, the ink pads - both dye inks and pigment inks - will go into the newly located styrofoam containers.  During the summers, such containers are a bit easier to find, but during the winter months, no one needs coolers!  Once packaged up, I’ll leave these in climate controlled conditions until the VERY last minute before moving them to the unheated space.  Perhaps it will be far enough into the year that freezing won’t really be an issue.  Meanwhile, I’d rather be safe and not have to replace any that I don’t have to.