Faux Dichroic Glass (Part 2)

Welcome back & now to the really interesting part.

Firstly I would like to enlighten you with the method used for colouring your UTEE.

Materials:

Alcohol inks (various colours)
Blending solution (Ranger)
Clear UTEE
Mixing Pots (used yoghurt pots or plastic cups)
Wooden sticks (lolly sticks or stainless steel spatula)

In fact this is achieved by using alcohol inks which are incorporated into small batches of clear UTEE to give you a colour pallette. This really reduces the need for purchasing coloured UTEE (I think the only available brand is Rangers Suze Weinberg). I have used both Ranger and Letraset Tria inks for the colouring. The Tria inks come in Pantone colours if you want to be really accurate with colourways and the Ranger in a series of 24 good colours. Main difference is that the Ranger inks come in a 25ml bottle whilst the Tria in a 40ml bottle. I made a series of colour swatches of the Ranger inks by cutting gloss cardstock into 2cm x 3.5cm strips and adding 4 drops of Ranger Alcohol Blending Solution with 2 drops of coloured ink and drying with a gentle heat from a heat gun. I arranged the finished swatches in colour groups and using a brad fixed them together. This made it easy to select my colour pallette.

Take a small quantity (30gms) of clear UTEE and transfer to one of the mixing pots. Into this squirt the colour ink of your choice (around 5ml). Stir well with the lolly stick and the ink will disperse into the UTEE. Once the UTEE is free flowing as you stir, the colouring has been completed. It is by trial that you will reach the correct intensity of colour - if you think the colour is not strong enough, add some more ink and stir as before. Once you are happy with the colour transfer the coloured UTEE into a storage container. I use a craft mates storage system but you could use any sealable container to store your collection of colours. It is a bit laborious to make the coloured UTEE but it's all worth it in the end !

To be honest you will not use much of this coloured UTEE in comparison to the clear UTEE needed when we get onto the method, but it is essential to use it.

See Part 3 for method and variations

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