I Love Learning New Things! But Also: Safety First! OSHA is Your Friend.
I recently discovered a new (to me) medium and decided I’d give it a try: Alcohol Inks.
Alcohol inks are exactly what they sound like – ink whose main liquid component is alcohol. If you’ve ever played with plain isopropyl alcohol along with water-based paint you’ve seen the cool unique effect(s) alcohol can have. These inks have cool effects in spades!
Interesting “blooms,” swirls of colors, subsequent colors pushing original colors out of the way, interesting lines of darkness at the edges. All these unique effects are created because of the properties of alcohol.
While you can use alcohol inks on most substrates (surfaces), the less porous the surface, the more magical the effects. I have mostly been using tiles because they are cheap and, if you don’t like what you ended up with, you can just squirt on some plain alcohol, wipe the tile clean, and start all over again.
My current favorite place to learn about alcohol inks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Yr-p69aSD4vRn9mwpE4ug
The most important things to know about alcohol inks, however, is below:
IMPORTANT SAFETY WARNING: Breathing alcohol fumes can make you sick. Use a mask! I do not mean the dinky things designed to filter out dust, I mean a heavy duty, real deal, gas filtering respirator. I put links below to the mask and filters I would advise (no sponsorships, just my honest opinion). Do not use around children or pets, especially birds (they have very delicate respiratory systems). If you are using alcohol inks indoors, use in a well-ventilated area, open a window, use a fan, etc. Indoors or out, use a mask!
I have also included a link to a safety data sheet by one of the most common alcohol ink manufacturers. If you have trouble understanding it (it’s full of technical data), see the link below it for OSHA’s contact page. You can look through their FAQs, email or snail mail them, or even give them a call. OSHA’s knowledge base is HUGE!
Safety Data Sheet: https://www.dlartglass.com/PDFs/MSDS/ALCOHOL%20INKS%20MIXATIVES.PDF
