Painting with Alcohol Inks - what supplies do I need?

A great advantage of painting with alcohol inks is that - in contrast to acrylic pouring - you do not need a large work area or a special hobby room. It is sufficient to protect the work surface with a large newspaper or foil and to provide sufficient ventilation. All the materials can also be quickly stowed away in a box and take up little space.

Would you like to try painting with alcohol inks for the first time and not yet invest so much money in equipment? Then we recommend our Alcohol Ink Starter Set. In this set, we have put together the basic equipment you need to start painting with alcohol inks: Alcohol inks, alcohol ink paper, isopropanol and other useful accessories. The alcohol ink starter set is available in four different colour combinations.

With an Alcohol Ink Starter Set you can already achieve great results. But you will probably be so fascinated by the radiant colours, their reactions with each other and the resulting colour gradients that you will want to try out other Alcohol Ink techniques or colours. If you are not sure which colours harmonise with each other or create exciting contrasts, we have prepared optimally coordinated colour sets. These consist of three colours each, which can be used to conjure up such beautiful creations, for example. By using one of our metallic shades, you can achieve very special effects.

The individual alcohol ink colours can be mixed with each other. You can also make them more transparent with Blending Solution or dilute them with isopropanol. Small squeeze bottles, which you can easily fill with the help of a mini funnel, are ideal for this. Everything is included in our bottle sets.

You can also achieve interesting effects by filling either isopropanol or alcohol inks into spray bottles. You can simply drip the alcohol inks onto your painting surface. You can apply both alcohol ink and isopropanol to the Alcohol Ink paper with pipettes. Or you can screw needle caps onto the alcohol ink bottles for even more precise dosing.

Small pharmacist's bottles with glass pipettes are particularly practical. These are easy to fill and enable precise dosing of the alcohol inks. But you can also achieve great effects with spray bottles.

And of course you need an alcohol ink painting surface. All non-absorbent surfaces are suitable. The best results are achieved on special alcohol ink paper. This is not really paper at all. It is synthetic and usually made of polypropylene. The best known brands are Yupo and Lanavanguard. On these special papers, the Alcohohl Inks can flow into each other wonderfully, you can swirl them or use a hairdryer. You can also paint realistically with alcohol inks. Photo paper, for example, is very suitable for this. You can even paint with alcohol inks on canvas. The only important thing is that you prepare it with gesso or acrylic binder. By the way, wallpaper skin is also an inexpensive alternative.

Let your creativity run free and decorate candles, ceramics, modelling clay, stones, lanterns or shells with alcohol inks. You can also decorate colourful tiles or glass panes with alcohol inks.