It is stressful to take a new creative hobby. The bare surface is looking at you back, the bottles of ink are cryptic and there is a voice in your head telling you not to mess it up. This is the shocking fact of the alcohol ink painting: it feeds on a small amount of chaos. This medium is fast, bold and does not act in the manner intended. The nervousness disappears as soon as you cease struggling with that fact. Rather than control each and every drop, you start playing with the color itself. Check this site!
Choose Your Surface Wisely
The very first choice you take is important than you are likely to think. The alcohol ink requires a non porous surface – consider synthetic paper or ceramic tile or smooth glass. Plain paper will only soak up the ink and a drab and uneven spot will remain. However, synthetic sheets allow the pigment to be free to roam and grow into life. And that flower is where the loveliness stays. You can never do without it, you are merely staining. It is like color breathing by itself with it.
Start with a Limited Palette
Do not be tempted to open all the bottles simultaneously. Two or three colours are sufficiently enough to start with. The tendency to grab too many shades at once tends to produce an indistinctified overwork appearance. Rather, select one primary color and one or two secondary colors. Let them meet organically. see what they put against one another. You are learning about the chemistry of color, not the choreography of the scene.
Mind Your Own Business and Your Business.
There is no compromise on ventilation. Stick an open window, a fan and keep the air circulating. The fumes of alcohol ink are intense and when one is sober, it is worth a productive creative session. Gloveing is worth having, too, unless you have no aversions about having rainbow-stained fingertips during the next few days- those colors have a strong attachment to the skin.
Play Before You Plan
Take one drop that is laid on the surface. Watch how it spreads. Pour a dash of isopropyl alcohol or blending solution around it and watch the pigment change and spread out to the open forms of soft organic forms. Slant the surface over towards a direction which you are interested in.
The most important point is that early sessions should be short and lighthearted. An hour of nervous overworking cannot compare with fifteen minutes of real exploration. You are creating intuition by drop. What seemed like a blank daunting surface will one day become an open door or what you will come to know as a walk through door.