Tinting Polymer Clay With Pinata Alcohol Inks

Video #728: In this video you will see why it takes much less ink to color translucent clay as compared to white polymer clay... More Info: http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?p=20307 Polymer Clay Tutor.

Today I am going to teach you about tinting polymer clay with Pinata Colored Alcohol Inks.

Recently I received a small selection of Pinata Alcohol Inks from Jacquard, and was testing saturation by mixing the inks into both Translucent and White Polymer clay. Seeing the samples side by side, and noticing the difference in how the pigment looks in white versus translucent clay, it occurred to me that most people may not actually understand how adding a pigment like alcohol ink, actually behaves with polymer clay.

We have been using alcohol inks with polymer clay for years. In fact I have a sample of a necklace I did for a tutorial done back in 2012, called Frosted Rainbow Flower Beads Tutorial. I used Adirondack Alcohol Inks in that project. I also have some samples of other tutorials using alcohol inks. So we know that inks in general, are compatible with polymer clay.

Up until now I hadn't had the opportunity to try the Pinata Color Inks from Jacquard. They don't have them in my local Michaels and I just hadn't gotten around to ordering them online.

So I made up some sample chips and a small batch of beads and cabochons to test the colors and the saturation of the ink.

As you will see form the baked sample chips, the color in the translucent sample is much darker and richer than the samples of the inks mixed into the white clay. In fact, the sample of translucent with only 1 drop of the Pinata ink is multiple times darker than the sample of white clay mixed with 3 drops of ink.

The reason for this is because the white clay, isn't just clay without any color... it is clay that contains a white pigment. So when the white pigment mixes with the colored pigment of the alcohol ink, it creates a pastel color. Whereas when the alcohol ink pigment mixes into the translucent, there is no pigment particles to mix with, so it tints the translucent clay whatever color the ink pigment is.

Watching the video will help you to visualize all this, much better than just reading my explanation.

So... to anyone that asks if it is possible to just buy white polymer clay, and make your own colors by adding alcohol ink, paint, powders etc. (a common questions)... the answer is yes and no.

Yes you can tint the clay to make new colors... but no, you can't really make the same deeply saturated opaque colors that you can buy in the colored clay. You would need the same kind of highly saturated pigments that the manufacturers use, along with lots of patience and experimenting to get the right formula figured out. And by then, it would be much more expensive and much harder to do then just buying the opaque colors of polymer clay.

Using the inks on the outside is a completely different story though, which will need to be told on another day.

Related Resource: Pinata Inks On Amazon... http://amzn.to/1ROjLBW

Related Video: Frosted Rainbow Flower Beads Polymer Clay Tutorial... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?p=14979#video

Related Video: Mixed Media Art Sheets Technique... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?p=11266#video

Related Video: Polymer Clay Batik Technique... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?p=18294#video

Related Article: Using Alcohol Ink With Polymer Clay... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?p=2051

And... more info about today's video is at my blog... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?p=20307

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Видео Tinting Polymer Clay With Pinata Alcohol Inks канала PolymerClayTutor