Alternatives to alcohol ink markers

[pamcook]

Any ideas? I say a technique I thought would be fun to try but I don’t own any Copics (or any like that). Any thoughts or am I going to have to break down and buy a few? The alternative would have to work on vellum.

[Monica]

You can use the alcohol inks from the bottles, depending on what you're trying to do. I have all the TH ones in a palette to use with one of his refillable alcohol ink pens that I have blending solution in. Ranger also just came out this year with a brush set for the alcohol inks, which hopefully won't ruin those brushes like it has a couple of my other ones.

[Monica]

There are also the Clean Color brush markers... I believe Farley has those and a few others as well.

[nancine]

I know Jennifer used to use Sharpies for some stuff...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-jKsXsJzok

[nchoney]

My Tuesday Morning got some alcohol marker sets in this week. I picked up a couple assortment to play with.

[Debbie J]

I have a Tuesday Morning close to me and last week I jokingly said I needed to get a job there and the cashier got all excited and said they have an opening and she saw I bought scrapbook stuff and we got to talking about scrapbooking etc and she said I could talk to the manager etc and I was like WHOA, that sounds like a commitment to me and I’ve been there and done that in that s***hole I worked at for 36 years, I’m loving my retirement and doing what I want when I want, now if I could work PRN that might be different! Anyway I LOVE my Tuesday Morning!

[mpizzazz]

You could also just use a brush with the AIs and blending solution or plain old alcohol.

[pamcook]

All very helpful! Thanks.

[paddlegal]

Nancy is correct...I do have the Kuretake Clean Brush markers and they are terrific if you want to do a water color technique. But if you’re wanting to do some coloring that involves blending, either alcohol or water markers might be best. I have Copics and I recently fell into acquiring some Altenew AI markers which are quite nice. BUT...Tombow markers are also excellent and they are water based and have a blender pen that works quite well if you use watercolor paper for blending techniques. Regular card stocks will pill with the Tombows.

Pam what is the technique you are hoping to do? That really is the question.

[pamcook]

It’s this one. I would love to be able to watercolor as beautifully as she does and then she posts this. I’ve never felt I needed Copics and never enjoyed working with alcohol inks. Darn her anyway! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HLn3e1aC5IY&t=303s

[paddlegal]

It’s this one. I would love to be able to watercolor as beautifully as she does and then she posts this. I’ve never felt I needed Copics and never enjoyed working with alcohol inks. Darn her anyway! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HLn3e1aC5IY&t=303s

Oh of course...I should have known this was what you were talking about. I went through their blog hop this morning. Really, I hate to say this but alcohol markers are the way to go with this because of their permanence. Water based markers I think would smear and not really dry on vellum. But I also remember in one of my classes I took from Tim Holtz, he did this style of painting on the back of vellum too using his bottles of AI and small felt dabblers to apply the colors. So that is another way you could try this. I made my own felt dabbers by using very small wood blocks, sticky backed Velcro and felt. Worked great. You just squirt a little AI onto the felt and start dabbing the color on. Very watercolorish looking if you don’t mind not staying in the lines.

[pamcook]

Thanks Farley. Maybe if I wait long enough, the desire will go away! If they were so danger expensive! Of course, I could go look through my stash to see if I do have any AI left...

[pamcook]

I checked my bin of Prismacolor markers and they’re alcohol ink! Here’s a sample. The ink dries too quickly but blend easily on vellum. I love the watercolor effect and now just need to find a good stamp to use (from my stash).

Left image is the back - the side you work on. The right image is what you see on the embossed side.

Thanks again, everyone!

52A1ED31-36C3-4296-B2D5-B5EE4CBEA0C6.jpeg (66.54 KiB) Viewed 911 times

[nchoney]

Those turned out great!!

[paddlegal]

How funny and great you had AI markers! Your flowers are seriously stunning.