hello youtube friends and welcome to my channel if you're new here my name is
deidra from our upcycled life and i do lots of thrifting upcycling repurposing and diy content
today's video is an alcohol ink dupe they can be really expensive especially if you want to buy all
kinds of different colors so i'm going to show you today how you can make your own and apply it on a
canvas and it mimics alcohol ink and i also want to thank skillshare for sponsoring today's video
okay let's get started to show you how to do this technique i'm going to use a dollar store canvas
they're really affordable and they work really well before we do this technique we have to prep
our canvas i am going to apply a couple coats of my homemade gesso
i just did a tutorial and you can check that out i'll put the link down below in the description
of how you can make your own homemade gesso it's really easy and it takes simple ingredients but
if you don't prep your board with this gesso your technique is not going to work you have to put a
sealer on the canvas if not when we put our paint on it it's going to soak through into the canvas
and we're not going to get the alcohol ink effect so this is a really important step if you don't
want to make a homemade recipe you can always find it at your art supply store i've got two coats on
i'm just giving it a really light sand with some 220 grit sandpaper and we're ready to get going
now this technique will only work with acrylic paint it won't work with chalk paint or with
latex paint so get your stash of acrylic paint out and give this a try i have my paint palette and
i have some water in the middle sections and i'm just putting in a little bit of the acrylic paint
in each of these smaller little sections because we're going to incorporate the acrylic paint into
the water now here's the magic potion to do our dupe alcohol ink rubbing alcohol now you want to
make sure you're buying alcohol and a dropper that is 70 or higher don't buy anything lower it will
not work as well now we want to dip our paintbrush in the acrylic paint and then put it in the water
you want a really watered down solution you don't want much paint in it at all just enough
to just color the water and you just start painting your canvas while the paint is still
wet you're not going to let it dry you're going to take your dropper and just drop the alcohol
into that paint solution and you can see the cells that it's creating and it gives you that
alcohol ink effect and it's just beautiful now you have to make sure that you have your
acrylic paint watered down enough because the alcohol reacts with the water if you don't have
enough water mixed into your acrylic paint you will not get this effect alcohol ink can get
really expensive and if this is something that you just want to dabble in and just try it out and
see if you like it this is a great way to start here on my channel though i'm all about finding
cheaper alternatives that work well and save you a little bit of money so that's why i wanted to
share this technique with you so you don't have to put out a lot of money buying alcohol inks
in the beginning you can try this out see if you like it and then go from there and there's also
no right or wrong way of doing this it's just using your imagination and being creative and
splashing paint here and there and dabbing it and then just dropping in the alcohol and creating all
these really fun beautiful cells and as you drop paint into other colors and then hit it
with the alcohol dropper you're creating other colors within that palette and it's just so fun
to watch it evolve and i'm just gonna work away here and you can watch and see what i'm creating
you can also pick up your canvas and move your paint around let it swirl and drip and it just
gives it a little bit more of a fun effect and then you can drop some more alcohol into it
here's my finished canvas i'm going to chat a minute about skillshare
make sure you stick through to the end because i'm going to show you what i made with it when it was
all finished if you appreciate a good diy project then you need to subscribe to skillshare if you've
ever had any questions or just want to learn more about crafting then skillshare is a place for you
it's an online video based platform where you can learn anything from photography to calligraphy
and the difference between skillshare and youtube and why i like it so much is it focuses on
interaction much like being in the real classroom the instructor lays out steps and information in
a way that's easy to comprehend and it's also ad free so you can stay in the zone while exploring
new skills with new classes being launched every week there's always something to discover
i just started taking kelly chase's alcohol ink class and so far it's amazing and i've
certainly taken my alcohol ink skills to the next level because of kelly's class for less than ten
dollars a month you can learn a new skill and the first thousand people to use the link in my
description box or code will get one month free of skillshare so try it out and let me know what
you think i let my canvas completely dry and now i'm gonna do a graphic transfer using these
cd label sheets or mailing label sheets i'm going to peel off the sticky paper and we're going to
use the paper underneath that's shiny i've printed on the shiny side with my laserjet printer this
will only work with a laserjet printer and we're going to use our water-based polyurethane and
i'm going to coat the whole canvas with it and then lay my graphic down into it let it dry it
takes a few hours and when you peel away that sheet your graphics are left on your project
it's not always perfect sometimes you'll have little bits and pieces that don't transfer
but i love that look and it's also nice because you don't have to worry about rubbing off any
paper like the mod podge transfer method so this is my completed canvas using the dupe alcohol ink
method i'm having so much fun fooling around with this technique and after watching so many videos
on skillshare i think i'm ready to maybe purchase some alcohol inks and take it to the next level
i also wanted to show you it on a piece of wood this is just a piece of pine that i painted
with some black chalk paint and then over top of the drop black chalk paint i
painted two coats of the gesso and now i'm doing this alcohol ink dupe technique on top of that
and you can see i've just been using the blue and the green dropping the alcohol into it and
it's creating some beautiful cells on the wood also you can also do this on paper just as long
as you've got a couple coats of the gesso on it i hope you've enjoyed today's tutorial and
if you haven't explored into the world of alcohol inks this is a great place to start
and i find that it gives such a unique background to any of the wooden signs that i make or the
canvases that i apply my graphics to if you like this kind of content i'd love for you to like
subscribe and hit the bell for notification so you don't miss any great diy content
thanks for watching have a great day and if you love this video i'm sure you'll love either of
these too thanks for watching have a great day and we'll see you in the next video take care