Acrylic inks are gorgeous.  I've been buying them in Michael's with 60% off coupons, bringing them home and storing them in my supplies cabinet. The ones I have are the Daeler Rowney inks and   the metallic liquitex inks. There are many shades and colors in both companies and they vary in price based on the type.

These acrylic inks inspired me to start this blog series of what you can do with various materials that look like so much fun to use, but you don't know what to do with them.

Here are 7 ideas that I came up with through my research on acrylic inks and what to do with them. 

1-Paint with them

This was an exciting find for me. Acrylic inks can actually be used to paint with.

The trick is to put a small amount in a paint well and use a small brush. The ink is fluid so can't be put onto a regular palette even though you can just stick a brush into the jar.

You may also only want to use it for smaller pieces, hence the small brush since it is very concentrated and there is not a lot in one jar.

The colors of the ink are  amazingly vibrant and they go on very smoothly and fluidly as opposed to the textured look of paint.

I have found that they are great for painting in stamped images as you can see below in the smaller flower and the larger flower on the right.

I am looking forward to discovering what else I can paint with acrylic inks.

2- Write with them

Going  back to ancient times you can actually use these inks to write with a dip pen. Noticing the array of ink colors you will see that you are not limited to black ink either.

There is an artist that I follow Sandrine Pellisier that uses dip pens and ink to enhance her art and you can do so as well. ​

3-Make sprays with them

Up until now I have either purchased sprays like the dylusions ink sprays  or made them with acrylic inks and water. Inks however, are another great way to make sprays. You put water in a small spray bottle and then add the ink. You will have to experiment to see how much ink you have to put in for the effect you like.

4- Add them to  pouring medium

There is a product on the market called pouring medium that I had purchased a while before and it was sitting with my supplies. It's usually used with acrylic paints , but works with inks as well.

I poured some into 2 different cups and dripped 2 different color inks into each cup. With the first cup I poured a circular pattern onto my craft mat which then dried and allowed me to peel it off afterwards to use in another art piece.

With the second cup I poured it onto my background in a random, grass like pattern that dried dark and shiny​. I am going to use it as grass in this piece.

5- Use like watercolors

Very  simply spritz a watercolor paper with water and then drop the inks onto the wet paper watching them spread. Makes a great background..

6-Make an abstract piece of artwork

This piece was created in a similar way to the one above, but was taken much further.

I started by wetting the background (canvas panel) and painting 2 different colors with acrylics. I then dripped alcohol in random places onto the background. I dripped the inks onto the alcohol drops. I allowed this to dry and did this over and over again adding new colors. To get the ink to move when it wasn't doing so, I kept a spray bottle of water nearby and would spritz the ink to get it to move.

​I'm not sure its finished and I'm also not sure if I'm going to leave it as is or I'm going to put something on top of it.

7- Make collage pieces

These were paper towel that were dyed with a combination of watered down acrylic paints and inks. What I found worked best was to crumble up the paper towels, dip a few sides in the inks and paint, open them up and finish them by dripping inks all over. You can then use these to collage with.

If you have any other ways to use acrylic inks then I'd love for you to share them.

Enjoy!​