Transparent Ink

[Bobbie Rochow]

Where can I find transparent ink to buy for shading in reverse on glass? Sorry, did a search, could not find any answers. Thanks!

[Danny Baronian]

At your local screen printing supply.

Transparent screen inks. Ink dezyne and sericol are a few, available in quarts.

Danny

[Mike Jackson]

Bobby,
You can go to your local art supply store and just buy a few tubes of artist's oil colors, then mix it in with some clear varnish. It might be worth adding a little japan dryer.

Some pigments are more transparent than others. If you don't have the background in art, you can probably ask the person at the store. You can probably find a web page on the net that catagorizes all the colors by opacity/transparency. For example, most of the yellows and oranges with the word "cadmium" will be fairly opaque and not well suited for glazes and transparent techniques.

Steven Parrish had tubes of Thalo Blue and Thalo Green he used on his bank windows. They are slightly transparent and work well for outlining reverse glass gold signs. When working from the back of the glass, you can see if you are being relatively consistent in your stroke offsets. I believe it is in the old gold leaf books, but you can wait until that paint has almost dried, then pounce over it with a black pounce bag. The black charcoal will deposit a tiny bit of powder to make the blue more opaque when viewed from the back side.

As always, experiment with all these techniques before trying them on a job on location!!!

Mike Jackson

[Henry Contreras]

Here's a link to NazDar screen printing inks

http://www.nazdar.com/screen_printing_p ... &attrID=38

I have used Enamels ink and added tranparent base to them when I was doing reproduction pinball glass

-loco

[Roderick Treece]

Henry,
Ron Percell sells very small amounts of it at Letterhead sign supply.

[Bobbie Rochow]

Thank you all. Mike that was really interesting, what you mentioned about using oil colors & varnish. I have oil colors, japan dryer, but no varnish. The closest I have to varnish is shellac & slow & quick size.

I will check with Ron Percell, & if he doesn't have any, I will check out the ink site too.

[Kent Smith]

Bobbie,

You can use quick size or fast size as a clear for mixing tansparent oil colors (they are varnishes by the way). You cannot successfully use shellac with pigments for transparency (black shellac not withstanding). Phthalocyanine (thalo) Blue and Green, Prussian blue, Cobalt purple, Quinacridone Red and others will transparentise well but will also slow the drytime of the varnish. A very small addition of dryer will help but still the drying is slower. The cadminums are opaque but hansa's and other synthetics are more transparent. There are further suggestions in Gold Leaf Techniques 3 and 4.

[Bobbie Rochow]

Such good news!!!! Thank you Kent! Now, this may be a foolish question, but...the oil colors I have here are actually tubes of Griffin Alkyd Colour. Not sure if they are REAL oil colors, but I have always liked usiong them. Will they work with the size also?

[Kent Smith]

Short answer...no.

Acrylics are solubalized in a solvent but their carrier is water so they are not compatible with oil based resins. While some acrylic pigments could work in the varnishes, they will not typically stay in suspension white the natural pigments ground in linseed oil are what will work for you in this case.

On another note, which I did not mention, with the transparent inks, you have to use them as a pre-mixed intensity with little hope of altering them to suit your project. That is why I like to use oils as they can be mixed to many different intensities as well as inter-mixed for interesting effects.

[Kelly Thorson]

Griffin Alkyd colours are a Windsor & Newton Product and are oil based. The vehicle is a modified alkyd resin which makes them faster drying, but they maintain the characteristics of other tube oils. They are slightly more transparent than regular oil paints and dry to a more even sheen. I don't see any reason you couldn't use them, but if you want clarification you could contact the manufacturers or run a test. I suspect they will do just fine.

[Bobbie Rochow]

I will be working on some other glass pieces this weeknd, so I think i will give them a try.

Thanks Kelly!

[Kent Smith]

I can see an advantage in using the Griffin Alkyds in that they would be more easily intermixed with other alkyd resins such as 1Shot and quick size and they will adhere as well as an enamel. The only disadvantage is that the colors are premixed in the alkyd resin and therefore not as intense as those ground in oil which will make them more transparent initially. I still prefer being able to adjust the color at the basic pigment level, then transparentize with a clear.