Working With Liquitex Acrylic Inks

Welcome to this week’s MidWeek Muse and the newest video featuring an old favorite product – Liquitex Acrylic Inks!

Light fast and available in 30 colors, these inks are actually a very fluid acrylic paint. Because they are so fluid you can do many cool things with them, some of which I’ll show you in the video.

One really important property of the inks is that they’re permanent once dry so colors can be layered with no muddying, though of course they can be mixed while wet to create new blends. A good analogy is to compare the inks to liquid watercolors on steroids. They’re are highly pigmented so a little goes a long way and the colors tend to be very intense.

In the video you’ll see me create backgrounds using the inks in several different techniques, some that play upon the fact that they’re like liquid watercolors. The one I’m the most excited about is mixing them with water in empty spray bottles to create colors that can be misted on surfaces. With the “permanent when dry” property, you can work with the inks in all of the ways you would with other sprays, just with the knowledge that making mud is a bit less likely. You can layer a color over one that’s already dry without changing either. There are other fun things to do with the inks including using them with a dip pen. I’ve never used one before, so experimenting with the pen and inks was a new adventure that I had fun with.