Making Alcohol Ink: An experiment!

 What do I mean "experiment"?  Well, I mean that I have an idea of how to make alcohol ink, but I have no desire to go watch hours of videos to see exactly how to do it. I kind of remember there being a bit of variation so I am going to wing it. Which you shall soon see some winging it is folly. "Permanent" is relative.

What you need:

• Latex or some protective gloves of some sort (unless you don't really care about a little ink on the hands like me)
• Small glass (or plastic - use what you want) jars = to # inks you want to make. I used stevia drops glasses which hold 2 ounces of liquid and have a dropper as a cap.
• Pliers
• Fine tip permanent markers
• Some disposable surface to work on (like the cardboard here in the pic)
• 91%+ isopropyl alcohol 

What you don't need: a knife of any kind.  In fact hide it from yourself so you wont be tempted. 

 How:  Take the cap off a pen.  Grab it with the pliers like so:

Then hold the grey end and snap it where the color changes on the pen's outside.  Snap away from your face.  Don't make me repeat that!  OK, below is what you get post snap. An ink drenched cotton with a neat little plasticy tube holding it in.  Do not get any bright idea about cutting that tube to expose the inside.

 

See the picture below? That's what happened when Miss Winging It cut the protective tube.  If you get the "permanent" ink on you, just wipe your hands with a lot of the alcohol.  Most of it not embedded under your nails will come off.  Crisis overish.  Except what's the black under the nail?  Mystery.

  Stuff the ink tube into your jar.  Fill it with alcohol. Screw the cap on swirl it about some and then let it sit.  I am going to test the ink out with various concentrations of alcohol, decide on the best amount then do the rest of the inks. We'll see if the dilution really matters.  I will let ya know!

Mid experiment report.  Note on future swatching: Swatch the actual inkpen on the swatchcard AND either dip the squeeze tube in the jar or color the squeeze tube on the dropper with the marker as you fill each jar so you know what the color in the far actually looks like.

Meanwhile, why did I decide to make the alcohol ink?  One, alcohol ink is expensive and my interest in it is more a curiosity. I may need them for batik (more on that later), but I will need pens. Two, Annette (a fellow creative from SUFA) and I are planing to attend a fun little class on abstract alcohol ink on the 23rd of January at MakeSpace - Kayenta. Three, they fascinate me.  Will they be useful and fun?  I bet they will be!

OK back to business.  48 hour post make swatch card:

 

Top 4 and the green on row 2: I made a tester group with various dilutions and one with 2 marker inserts to see how strong the colors are.   After 48 hours I swatched it on watercolor paper.  I decided the final group of alcohol inks would be somewhere between (eyeballed) 1.5 -1.75 alcohol:1 marker, except brown because it looked like the ink was more dry than the others.  I will replace the ink tube if it comes out beige (it didn't -yay).   About the brown.  Can you see there in the swatch that brown's writing is very light and thin?  The ink was dry.  BUT whoa!  The ink came out plenty dark. If you have old markers and they have dried out - make some alcohol ink!  You don't need to buy new ones.  I live in the desert.  Stuff (including me - see the hands picture) dries out quickly.

The pens were about 6 months old and I didn't use them very much. 

I bought some YUPO paper to play with the alcohol inks.  I will write about it when I do. Probably after I take the class at the end of the month. So excited!