2016 #22 Zinski Alcohol Blending {by Lauren Hatwell}

 2016 Topic 22: Alcohol Inks and Pens

Hi everyone Lauren here.

Tonight I'd like to share a post about colouring with alcohol markers and using alcohol solution to add texture and interest to your images and backgrounds.

I often feel that colouring in is slightly under-rated. Aside from the obvious relaxing qualities, adding colour to an image is what gives it life. It's the magic that gives a piece an identity. You can take the same image and give it a completely different purpose or feel just by treating it differently, which means your stamps work extra hard for you too. A good example is the sheep I made from a flower with a JOFY stamp recently. All it took was a change of colour and a few details to transform it:-

Of course, there are lots of ways to add colour to your stamped images, but for me, alcohol markers are the perfect colouring tool. They blend seamlessly and give a really clean, professional finish to your work without covering up the stamping lines. They are always the first thing I reach for when I'm playing around with images to see what I can do with them and they work beautifully alongside a lot of other mediums such as paint and pencils. Adding texture with Alcohol Blender is a great way to add interest to your colouring quickly and easily.

I've used some of ZinskiArt's fab little critters from sets ZA01 

plus ZA03  

and from the smaller Zini 04 (ZN04)

...to help me show you what I mean. Quite frankly, I can't get enough of them at the moment and they are just lovely to colour so any excuse is a good one. These techniques will work with alcohol markers or alcohol inks from a bottle.

Mr Eyeballs and Legs

Step One: Adding Colour If you were thinking these guys were only good for Halloween then think again. A slight wardrobe change and a seasonal background turns our monster into a snowball and all it took was a bit of doodling and some super quick one layer colouring.

Step Two: Bespoke Clothing Well I couldn't leave him all naked in the snow now could I.... Using his mouth as a starting point, I doodled a scarf and coloured it with red and green Copic Markers. Using some Surgical Spirit as my blending solution (you can also use nail varnish remover for this). I poured a little alcohol blender onto a flannel, fluffed up the fibres a bit and pressed it briefly over the colour to add texture and make it look more like fabric. This is also a good technique if you want to create the look of fur.

Step Three: Alcohol BG For the background I used a piece of glossy card swiped through some blue alcohol ink (I used Ranger's Denim shade mixed with a drop of blending solution). I love the smokey effect you get.

Step Four: Blending Fluid Reduction  To create the snowflakes I applied some blending solution on a cotton wool bud to one of Emma Godfrey's lovely snowflake stamps from EEG19 and stamped randomly over the piece of card. You need to move quite quickly as the alcohol will evaporate if you hang about. Your stamp also needs to be clean to do this or you will transfer ink onto your background. You can use your alcohol blender to clean your stamp before you start.

Step Five: Layering All I needed to do then was layer my image onto my background. I stamped it once straight onto the background with Memento ink in Tuxedo Black. Then I cut out and layered my coloured sections onto that image.  I added some torn paper to the bottom for snow, with a smattering of glitter glue for a bit of sparkle, before matting the whole lot onto a piece of black card. (Alcohol pens do tend to bleed through card but as I always layer my images before putting them onto a card blank, it's not usually a problem. I always put my cardstock onto a glass mat when I colour it in to ensure that all the ink stays on the piece of card I'm working on rather than bleeding into whatever is underneath. This should ensure that your pens last longer too.)

Rather than trim the card blank down, I repeat stamped one of Emma Godfrey's Christmas Sentiments from EEG12  ....

...(let it snow) down the side of the card.  Perfect!

Party Monsters

Step One: Mark Making It's a nice idea to keep a texture library and try out different mark making tools. Try more solution and less solution to see what the differences are. 

Even something as basic as a cotton bud dipped into alcohol blending solution will give you a variety of useful and interesting effects.

Step Two: Stencils This is alcohol blender dabbed through a stencil on a cotton wool ball. I finished halfway down the page and then used a flannel to blur the edges a bit. I really like the effect.

and I used it to make the card above…

Step Three: Layers images Note that you can also see on the clothing of these 2 that the technique using blending solution on a cotton cloth, like a looped flannel (face-washing cloth) is so effective to add dimension.

Step Four: Embellishments I love these two cuties from ZinskiArt Set 03 and Zini 04. They are such fun! Yes I DID cut out the snowflakes!

I hope that gives you a sense of what can be achieved. There are, of course, lots of different effects you can create using this simple technique and part of the fun is finding out what works best with your markers to add interest to your colouring projects.

Lauren Hatwell
MarvelousMechanicalMouseOrgan.blogspot.com

I really, really love your Mr leggy snowball, and that texture with the flannel and blending solution is a brilliant idea. It's surprising that you get such a crisp image when stamping with it too!! Thanks so much Lauren! ~Leandra

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas, particularly if you were inspired directly by their post; so please spare a moment to comment or make your own creative item. They all love to see your feedback and what you can do more than you realise!

We would love to see how you interpret this Alcohol Ink and Pens topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #22: Alcohol Ink and Pens on this page HERE. The Alcohol Ink and Pens link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Nov 27th 2016. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store.