Home › Forums › Explore Media › Pen and Ink › How to extend acrylic ink?
- This topic has 2 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 3 months, 1 week ago by cgrantski.
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November 23, 2015 at 10:15 am #993593
I want to extend some ink I have for a project that will require a lot of it. I don’t just want to water it down and dilute it. Is there a medium or something that can help extend it? The ink is acrylic.
November 23, 2015 at 11:12 am #1242905AnonymousWell your answer is partially contained in your question – Acrylic ink extender ! can be used to get a lighter shade of the original colour & obviously make the original bottle of ink last longer. Extender costs around the same as the ink does , so little or no money saving in using extender.
A high quality acrylic ink suck as Daley Rowney FW can be diluted 1 part ink to two parts water & still dry waterproof OK.- but again you will have a lighter tone of colour .
Assuming you are using dip pens to apply it, different models & makes of dip pens run wetter or dryer & are therefore delivering different amounts of pigment – So much so that for a larger wet nib making a broad line, I use the FW ink diluted as above to leave the same tone as the pure ink through a fine mapping pen used lightly on a single drawing !
Another thing to bear in mind is that if you do add water 2:1 to the ink you will not be able to flare the dip pen lines as broadly as when the ink was untouched – everything depends on your personal needs for the project.It would help if I had a clearer idea of exactly what you intend doing but I can tell you that acrylic mediums sold for use with paint are useless with ink intended to go though a dip pen (even the thin stuff) – It MUST be an acrylic INK extender.
Hope some of that is helpful , I can only report my own experiences with acrylic ink through a dip pen although when I tried using it through a brush in a wash recently I did notice that it appeared to require even further dilution for a given tone.
Too much water or extender & you lose the waterproof qualities of the acrylic ink & also potentially leave so little pigment that it would be prone to fading fast when exposed to light, so try to start out with a tone which is pretty near(ish) to your target tone. ie. light grey from a black might be pushing it to far.
Experimentation specific to your techniques exact requirements is the way ahead of course , I normally use a syringe & an empty ink bottle & mix small amounts , keeping a very careful record of the mix so I can repeat it when I find the perfect mix/tone/waterproofness balance.
Cheers MikeJanuary 4, 2024 at 12:22 pm #1537019It almost sounds like you need a bigger bottle of it unless you’re okay with the ink being thinner (lighter). But for thinning it – water would lessen the gloss and would be your second choice while first choice would be a low viscosity transparent acrylic medium that airbrush people use. Or a “clear” acrylic ink such as that made by Holbein.
I realize your project was finished years ago but I wanted to jump in.
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