Playing with Mixed Mediums

Acrylic, water based paint and alcohol inks – you can achieve different results by allowing the paint to dry completely or dry not so much.

I love to use alcohol inks on clear acrylic to get the tie-dye effect. Simply apply a drop or two of different colors and turn and rotate your acrylic shape to allow the inks to merge and create a third color - adding different ink colors as desired.

One recent afternoon I was playing with Magistical Memories chipboard and decided to pull out the alcohol inks. As I was playing I realized I would soon have to go to work – so rushed my project a bit. Not waiting for my acrylic painted chipboard to totally dry I applied a drop of Ranger alcohol ink and watched as it fanned out into very tiny “fingers” into the slightly wet paint. I loved the effect – and decided to go with it. This is how the flowers for “Born in My Heart” were made, although on some flowers the paint had had chance to dry more thoroughly than on others.

I am a fan of tie-dye effects on my scrapbook embellishments. I truly feel like a kid again as I run the inks together, turn my piece to control the flow of the inks up, down or right and left. It is simply a blast to do!

Sunday I decided to try something new. I wondered what effect would be produced if I did not allow the acrylic paint to dry at all before adding drops of alcohol ink. I worked on two trees, with the first being created much like the flowers I had done earlier, as shown below.


On the second tree I was quite generous with my coat of paint – a far cry from my usual dry brush technique. With the thick paint still wet I placed a drop of alcohol ink on top. The paint prevented the drop from fanning out, and in fact created an almost perfect circle. As I continued to squeeze one drop at a time onto the wet paint, each made a circle – and I had a tree topped with alcohol ink dots. I admit – the circles were a little too perfect for me and I began adding drops to disfigured them a bit after the paint had dried a bit more, allowing ink to spread. Then I realized I should stop, take pictures and share this look. You can still see pronounced circles with this sample. I can think of several patterned paper lines in which a dotted tree would look so cool.



I hope you give this a try sometime when you are playing with alcohol inks. They are a blast to work with, although be forewarned – your hands may be a bit stained for a few days.