Acrylic Inks
Most people are familiar with acrylic paints but have you heard of acrylic inks? Maybe you have, but have you ever used them?
Like acrylic paint, acrylic inks are derived from liquid plastic and are water based. However, acrylic inks are made with a much thinner medium than acrylic paints. The neat thing is that because these two mediums are so closely related, they play well together and you can mix the two in one work of art. For example, I like to use the paint as a fluid background and place the ink on top where is flows beautifully.
You can use inks either straight from the bottle “raw” or you can add a pouring medium like Floetrol to the ink. I have found that when the ink is mixed with Floetrol the inks don’t spread as much and are more controllable. When raw inks are used they tend to feather and spread. See this video as an example. Acrylic inks can also be used on paper, canvas, and even Yupo paper.
Acrylic inks are diverse much like paints and come in iridescent or pearl, metallic, and fluorescent varieties. They also come on transparent, opaque and semi-opaque types.
Some common brands of acrylic inks are:
- Liquitex
- Daler-Rowney
- Amsterdam
- Sennelier Abstract (My Favorite)
- Holbein
- Dr. Ph. Martin
- Golden High Flow Acrylic Ink
If you have never tried acrylic inks give them a try. They are relatively affordable and loads of fun!
Note: Be sure not to confuse acrylic inks with alcohol inks or India inks. While you can use alcohol with acrylic inks, acrylic inks are water based, not alcohol based.
