Tim Holtz Alcohol inks by Ranger are wonderful little bottles of joy! Made to be used on non-porous surfaces, the possibilities are endless! I used Stonewash Alcohol Ink and Celestial Alcohol Pearl Ink to complete my tests. I used both kinds so that the difference between the two inks can be shown.
(Please note that this ink was included in the original test documents from the Playing with Inks range, and the results documented in the downloadable table)
Let’s see what we can discover about the properties of Alcohol ink:
We know that this is an alcohol-based ink, so it is a solvent ink. The label on the bottle says that the Alcohol Inks are permanent, fast-drying, transparent dye inks formulated to create colourful, polished effects on glossy surfaces. The Alcohol Pearl Inks are different in that they are pigment and dye inks formulated to create pearlescent colourful effects. The pearl-part of the ink is the pigment added to alcohol dye ink.
The inks can be used on a variety of glossy surfaces like glass, metal, foil, shrink plastic, acetate, gloss cardstock, YUPO and other non-porous surfaces.
A couple of important things to remember when working with Alcohol ink:
- These are volatile inks – use in a well-ventilated area
- Alcohol vapors are flammable, and my cause flash fires – use in well-ventilated area!
- The inks colour glossy surfaces and this includes rings and jewelry!
- Remember to shake your Alcohol Pearl inks well before you use them to mix the pearl-pigment properly as it settles when standing.
Ranger’s Alcohol inks come in 15ml bottles. There are 70 Alcohol Ink colours and currently 12 Alcohol Pearl Ink colours available.
Stamping with Alcohol Ink:
I dripped some ink on a felt applicator tool to apply the ink to the stamp. To my amazement, these inks stamped perfectly! Clear and solid images! The Alcohol ink created a matt image while the Alcohol Pearl ink has a shiny finish.
The dried stamped images were not affected by painting over them with water. They were both affected by alcohol though, the normal Alcohol ink more than the Alcohol Pearl ink.
Dried stamped images painted over with water on the left and alcohol on the right:
Alcohol ink is a dye ink and does not show up on a dark background. The Alcohol Pearl ink however shows up beautifully on dark cardstock because it has a pigment component.
The Alcohol Pearl ink gave a perfect stamped image on glossy photo paper. The normal Alcohol ink also stamped well on the glossy paper, but there was some reaction with the paper. I suggest that this ink should be used with caution on photos and photo paper.
Other uses for Alcohol Ink:
The inks are alcohol-based and can (in theory) blend with water. To really work with Alcohol ink, you need to use Alcohol Blending Solution or Rubbing Alcohol. I will cover this in another blog. For now, I will focus on the results of my tests.
The normal Alcohol Ink blends with water, but not the Alcohol Pearl ink. The Alcohol Pearl ink made flakes and what looks like rust when blended with water.
Normal Alcohol ink is a liquid, so you can paint with it on its own to an extent. It can also be used to make splats, with and without blending it with water. Please note that the ink seeps through normal cardstock when used on its own (depending on how much ink you apply).
Painting with alcohol ink on normal cardstock:
Splats made with alcohol ink:
Alcohol ink blended with water gave much lighter results. This did not seep through the cardstock.
When trying to colour the gel and gesso I found another unexpected result. The Alcohol ink was able to colour both, while the Alcohol Pearl ink could colour neither! The Alcohol Pearl ink only left some metallic flakes in the gel medium.
The Alcohol inks can be used to blend, chalk and stencil. The blending is more smearing the ink on the paper than true blending. The edge chalking looks like something that can be useful and actually looks like edge chalking. The stenciling was less successful.
Blending:
Chalked page edges:
Stencilling with Alcohol Ink:
Stencilling with Alcohol Pearl Ink:
Solvent inks dry almost immediately and that makes it impossible to use them for heat embossing.
My Conclusion about Alcohol Inks:
Up to now, I have used Alcohol ink and Alcohol Pearl ink as it was intended on glossy surfaces, colouring pearls and metal embellishments among other things.
I did learn a couple of new things by playing with these inks and testing them in different ways. I will be using it for some stamping and colouring of gels and pastes in the future.
Now that you have seen how I discovered some new ways of using my inks through playing with them, I hope that you are inspired to find even more ways to use your ink!
PLEASE NOTE: All the opinions are my own. None of the products have been sponsored.