Polly Clay Tutorials: February 2013

Procedures for Mixing Alcohol Ink

There are many different dilutions you can do with the alcohol and ink. First and foremost, before mixing you will want to be wearing clothes you don’t mind staining or a smock, as well as rubber gloves.

Dilution #1
For any dilution you will first want to put a 50/50 mixture of liquid dye and alcohol (at least a 90% isopropyl alcohol or above) into your 2oz. travel spray bottle, and shake to mix it. Let the mixture sit for at least 24 hours before doing anything else with it. This is also the dilution I used for the project we did, I found it to have the most vibrant color.

Dilution #2 Using a 5 oz. plastic cup, place a coffee filter deep inside the cup and place the provided rubber band around the top of the cup to hold the filter in place. Then pour 50/50 mixture from the spray bottle into the coffee filter. This will filter out the thick liquid dye and leave only colored alcohol ink. You’ll need to let it sit for a while to filter, or you can carefully take off the rubber band while holding the filter, then twist the top of the filter closed and slowly squeeze, this will speed up the filtering process. Once filtered, pour ink back into spray bottle.

Dilutions #3, 4, 5, & 6 Other dilutions to try is taking that same 50/50 mixture that has been filtered and placed back in the spray bottle, and filling the rest of the spray bottle with either more alcohol or dye. Or fill mostly with alcohol and only top off with dye or vice versa. Again it just depends on how vibrant you want your color to be.

Dilution #7 Another dilution is taking the 50/50 mixture, but before pouring it back into the spray bottle, pour more alcohol into and through your filter. This will give you an almost pure alcohol ink mixture with no thick dye. ***NOTE: For all dilutions, be sure to keep shaking the bottle before and in between each use, just to keep the alcohol and dye from separating.***