Using Pinata Alcohol Inks For Tinting Premo Clay

00:00:03 –> 00:00:08 Hi Guys! It’s Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor and today’s Studio Tip. I’m going to

00:00:08 –> 00:00:16 show you a little bit about tinting polymer clay with Pinata Alcohol Inks. Now, recently,

00:00:16 –> 00:00:23 I got some new Pinata Color Alcohol Inks from Jacquard and I got just a small sampling of

00:00:23 –> 00:00:28 all the colors that they have. They have tons of them and I wanted to test them out to see

00:00:28 –> 00:00:35 how they looked in polymer in some different mixes and there was something interesting

00:00:35 –> 00:00:39 that came about so I thought I would share it with you because I think a lot of you don’t

00:00:39 –> 00:00:47 really understand pigments and that kind of thing. So, now, we’ve been using alcohol inks

00:00:47 –> 00:00:56 in polymer clay for years, in fact, I’ve got a tutorial that I did years ago back in 2012

00:00:56 –> 00:01:02 called The Frosted Rainbow Flower Beads Tutorial and I used alcohol inks to tint translucent

00:01:02 –> 00:01:07 clay here and I actually used that Adirondac Inks at the time and I have a few other samples

00:01:07 –> 00:01:13 here of projects that I’ve done using alcohol inks. So we’ve been using alcohol inks with

00:01:13 –> 00:01:19 polymer clay for a long time but I– up until now I haven’t tried the Pinata Colors, they

00:01:19 –> 00:01:24 aren’t really here in my Michael’s store so it didn’t have to get them but now I have

00:01:24 –> 00:01:30 some so I want to test them out but what I did was I made up some different sample chips

00:01:30 –> 00:01:37 and to see how the color how strong is saturated the color was and I thought it was quite interesting.

00:01:37 –> 00:01:42 Now, what I’m going to do is I’m going to put a little bit of one of these colors on

00:01:42 –> 00:01:47 here to let it dry, it takes a few minutes to dry so and then I’ll talk more about how

00:01:47 –> 00:01:53 everything works but what I’ve got is some Premo White Translucent. This is a one inch

00:01:53 –> 00:02:00 by one inch square, rolled out a a couple of playing cards thick and I’ve done all of

00:02:00 –> 00:02:05 these samples the same size so that we can see the the color difference and I’ll just

00:02:05 –> 00:02:11 grab– I’ll just grab the green one that’s here. This color here is called Lime Green

00:02:11 –> 00:02:20 this particular grouping of colors has quite a– it has kind of a real South Western kind

00:02:20 –> 00:02:26 of look to it but I’m going to put one drop of alcohol ink on this square. I’m going to

00:02:26 –> 00:02:32 put one on this white one so this is white Premo, that’s white translucent these are

00:02:32 –> 00:02:41 all whites here then I’m going to put two on here and three on here. Now, I’m just going

00:02:41 –> 00:02:45 to spread those out and let them dry for a minute and then I’ll go back to explaining

00:02:45 –> 00:02:52 what the heck I’m up to it can take it a little bit of time and it’s advantageous to let it

00:02:52 –> 00:02:58 dry rather than to mix it in when it’s wet. OK, so let’s do that, spread it out and you

00:02:58 –> 00:03:05 can see, the concept here is to have a higher concentration of the alcohol ink for the same

00:03:05 –> 00:03:14 amount of clay just to see how strong it is. Alright, so, what I did here like I said I’ve

00:03:14 –> 00:03:22 got in these rows here of got white translucent clay mixed with the different colors of alcohol

00:03:22 –> 00:03:30 inks. So this one here is called Santa Fe Red, this one is Baja Blue, this is Tangerine

00:03:30 –> 00:03:37 and this is Lime Green. All of these sample chips here have been mixed together and baked.

00:03:37 –> 00:03:44 So this one here had– this is the translucent it had one drop of the Santa Fe Red on it.

00:03:44 –> 00:03:52 Now, look at the difference between mixing the alcohol ink with the translucent compared

00:03:52 –> 00:03:59 to mixing it with a white clay. So this clay here has the same amount of Alco– it was

00:03:59 –> 00:04:03 the same amount of clay with the same amount of alcohol ink so this one only had one drop

00:04:03 –> 00:04:10 as well and it’s so much darker when it’s on translucent clay. And when you look back

00:04:10 –> 00:04:16 over here at the samples that you would– you might not realize that that’s what’s going

00:04:16 –> 00:04:22 to happen and the reason why is because the white clay actually has a pigment in it, it

00:04:22 –> 00:04:27 has a white pigment in it so the white pigment is mixing with the red pigment in the alcohol

00:04:27 –> 00:04:36 ink and it’s making a pastel color. Now, you would need to end up putting quite a bit–

00:04:36 –> 00:04:41 this one here has the three drops, it’s finally starting to get some more saturation in it

00:04:41 –> 00:04:48 and you would need to add a ton, a ton of alcohol ink in order to get it like a deep

00:04:48 –> 00:04:56 rich solid opaque color like this one here this is Cadmium Red from Premo and a lot of

00:04:56 –> 00:05:01 times, people will ask me: Oh can i just buy white and then mix in something to tint the

00:05:01 –> 00:05:05 clay? Well, you can tint it but you’re going to end up with a bunch of pastel colors if

00:05:05 –> 00:05:11 you’re going to try to tint white. You’re better off– if you wanted a color you’re

00:05:11 –> 00:05:17 better off tinting translucent and the reason for that is translucent doesn’t actually have

00:05:17 –> 00:05:24 any pigment in it it’s just, well it’s not completely clear but it’s it’s translucent.

00:05:24 –> 00:05:32 So what happens is each of the little particles from the– from the Pinata Ink or the whatever

00:05:32 –> 00:05:38 alcohol ink you’re using the light hits it and it’s not mixing with the other white particles

00:05:38 –> 00:05:43 and everything else so you end up with a color that ends up being darker and I would just

00:05:43 –> 00:05:51 wanted to show you some of these samples here. These are all made just with the Pinata Inks

00:05:51 –> 00:05:59 and Translucent Ink I mean Translucent Clay and when you have it in even denser amount

00:05:59 –> 00:06:05 of it so this here you know this is quite a thin piece of the light is getting through

00:06:05 –> 00:06:11 so it– it’s relatively light but when you’ve got it mixed in quite a dense amount the color

00:06:11 –> 00:06:18 gets darker and darker and darker which has a very unique look. I was thinking of calling

00:06:18 –> 00:06:23 these Pinata Stones because they are made just with the Pinata Ink and of course they’re

00:06:23 –> 00:06:29 not a real stone, they’re a Faux Stone but so I just wanted to show you those and now

00:06:29 –> 00:06:37 these are getting quite quite dry. In fact, I think this one is dry here I whenever I

00:06:37 –> 00:06:45 mix an alcohol ink into polymer clay, I like to let it dry first. Some people don’t, but

00:06:45 –> 00:06:53 the problem is if you don’t let it dry first, that moisture that’s in the alcohol ink can

00:06:53 –> 00:07:01 bubble up in your clay and especially in translucent, you can end up with a kind of a mooning effect

00:07:01 –> 00:07:06 they call it or plaquing, sometimes they call it, where you get these little breaks in the

00:07:06 –> 00:07:14 clay but now that this is dry. The one drop drives quite quickly, I’m just going to be

00:07:14 –> 00:07:21 able to mix this right in by folding it over and mixing it in with the– once it’s dry

00:07:21 –> 00:07:28 you’re basically just left with the pigment and then you can mix a pigment in. And you

00:07:28 –> 00:07:36 can see, it gives kind of a cool color and baked up that milkiness goes away in the translucent

00:07:36 –> 00:07:41 and you end up with a color just like this and see, there is a bit of a color shift once

00:07:41 –> 00:07:49 it’s baked but it’s not a huge difference. Now, for the white clay, I’ll just– I’m not

00:07:49 –> 00:07:56 going to bother mixing them all through but here’s this one is dry now and you can– for

00:07:56 –> 00:08:01 the white clay, it’ll be just a little bit different it will have a more pastel kind

00:08:01 –> 00:08:11 of look to it and you can see it mixes in quite easily. Now the problem is– I mean

00:08:11 –> 00:08:16 it’s not a problem but if you really really wanted a super rich color competing with the

00:08:16 –> 00:08:25 white pigments in the clay, you would need a lot of alcohol ink and it just it could

00:08:25 –> 00:08:35 hinder the consistency of the clay and especially if you didn’t let it dry and it could well

00:08:35 –> 00:08:40 –could end up being more expensive than just getting the more opaque lay so tinting your

00:08:40 –> 00:08:46 own clay it has its effects and you can do some very cool things with it but it’s not

00:08:46 –> 00:08:50 going you’re not going to just be able to buy white clay and get all the really rich

00:08:50 –> 00:08:57 dark, dark colors like you can if you buy the the solid clays. Alright, so there it

00:08:57 –> 00:09:01 is. It’s nice and mixed and you get the idea so I just wanted to show you that there’s

00:09:01 –> 00:09:06 lots of cool things that you can do with the the inks. You can tint your clay, as you can

00:09:06 –> 00:09:13 see. And as I was saying, it’s more effective if you’re tinting a translucent clay than

00:09:13 –> 00:09:18 some of these other ones or you can also use it on the outside of your clay like I have

00:09:18 –> 00:09:24 in some of these other techniques and you can use it for lots of really really neat

00:09:24 –> 00:09:30 projects. So I encourage you to start playing around with some alcohol inks with your polymer

00:09:30 –> 00:09:39 clay and try out some new techniques. Alright, if you want to learn more about polymer–

00:09:39 –> 00:09:48 using alcohol inks you can go to our blog and at www.polymerclaytutor.com. If you have

00:09:48 –> 00:09:54 any suggestions or if you have techniques, products, anything that you would like me

00:09:54 –> 00:09:59 the test that you don’t know more about, you can check them out on the blog or you can

00:09:59 –> 00:10:05 leave a suggestion as well and do let us know if you like this video. Alright, so we’ll

00:10:05 –> 00:10:08 see you next time and bye for now.

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