God in the Flower Garden

Soul Shadows Pouring Love

Meditation pond

Planetary Collisions of the Mind

Moon in the birchwood forest

20-Minute Art Project: Alcohol Ink Coasters

Alcohol ink coasters are the perfect project for anyone who has little artistic skill, a busy schedule, and the need for creative meditation. Much like the joys of acrylic fluid painting, it takes just about 10-15 minutes to make several of these beauties, and there is something almost magical watching as the paint colors nearly come alive momentarily as they mix and mingle before settling into their more permanent resting places.

SUPPLIES:

Alcohol inks — which can be purchased at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby, but they can be difficult to find in the store, and are some of the more expensive paints, if you’re on a budget. There are YouTube tutorials on how to make these paints at home from Sharpie markers, though that’s a little time-consuming. Alcohol inks work by dripping paint drops directly from the bottle onto your tile from various distances.

Alcohol Ink Blending Solution — important for adding transparency and liquidity to your alcohol inks (just a dab will you).

white tiles — easily purchased for just 15 cents a piece at Lowe’s or Home Depot — I recommend buying a whole box since this is one of those crafts that easily result in addiction; glue felt squares to the bottom beforehand (or after) if you don’t want the tiles scraping against table surfaces.

Preferred soundtrack — something earthy, slow and soothing so that you can really focus on the paint as it falls free onto the tile

Modpodge or some kind of fixative — The nice thing about alcohol ink on tile is that it’s dimensional and the paint really glistens; the bad thing is, it washes off of tile easily, so you need to protect your coasters with something if you want to use them for anything more than decoration (and even then, just for protection). I go over my tiles with a few layers of modpodge — I use modpodge for just about everything, it’s like the duct tape of art supplies — and it works okay though I still wouldn’t really count on the tiles withstanding heavy scrubbing or washing. I’m sure there’s a better fixative out there

A happy thought for inspiration — Alcohol inks aren’t the easiest paints to work with if portrait-realism is your goal; in fact, in some ways, alcohol inks paint with themselves. That makes them perfect mediums for creating more abstract landscapes and color story boards of emotions or feelings. I like thinking about natural elements when I’m using alcohol inks because of how the ink naturally spreads and splatters: lily pads on ponds, wildflower fields from above, fields from mountain tops, exploding stars. No matter what you’re thinking about, you may be surprised by the things you see in your work when you come back to it: gods in gardens, souls pouring love onto their ancestors from above, flowers blooming in sunsets. I’ve made dozens of these alcohol ink coasters, and I’ve never made a single one I didn’t like.